Eyes Open
by Blindspotdagger
Summary: *Now Complete* “Now, Miss," The Doctor said, "I am sure that in some future, we have met—and you’ve probably fallen madly in love with me—but at the moment…you obviously understand the somewhat confusing-” “…Nature of time-travel." She finished.
1. Chapter 1

**Eyes Open**

Chapter One: The Somewhat Confusing Nature of Time Travel

* * *

Eyes open. The Doctor stared straight up at the darkly beautiful face of Martha Jones and, for the life of Rassilon, could not remember what had happened to Donna. Wasn't Donna his companion now? When had Martha come back? Not that it wasn't nice to see his friend, but…

"Are you all right, Doctor?" She was checking his pulse with all the quick, professional doctor-likeness that she had gained. Her bottom lip was caught under her teeth, something she did when she was concerned. "You look dazed."

"Hmm…? Me, I'm right as Mitarian rain." He sat up to prove the point but the entire alleyway careened to the side. He grabbed for Martha's arm. He managed to scoot over and put his back to the brick wall so he'd have something to lean against. That jarring movement was nauseating and he considered tossing aside all pretense of being fine and having a good throw up.

He pushed aside her hands that were on his neck as she tried to peer into his eyes. "Now, now, Martha, I'm fine." He paused, frowning at the alley around him, "You know this looks very London-y, London-ish, London-like. Sort of a bad section of it but still very…"

"You don't remember where you landed the TARDIS?"

"Aw, you should see your face. All worried and wrinkled like a little prune. Love prunes. Have a reputation—mostly deserved—mind you, but you know what? I think they are mainly misunderstood."

"You are the most dreadful patient." Martha muttered. She tightened her grip on his face, as if trying to force his rambling thoughts into submission.

The Doctor could feel her thoughts, ever so slightly, though the warm soft tips of her fingers. In his youth, he rarely touched companions, too inexperienced to keep their thoughts from seeping in and too fearful of "what they might think" of him. But, he was too old to care now, too tired to be bothered by things like worry, or invading others privacy.

"Are we on the original article or New Earth," he looked upwards, thoughtfully, "I suppose we could be on New New New Earth, or New New New New Earth-"

"We're on regular earth, in regular London. April of 2009…Don't you remember, Doctor?" Martha swore softly, tilting his head down so she could check the back of it. "I think you have a concussion."

"Oi! Really?" It was rare for the Doctor to have a medical condition. All that exercise, good Gallifreyan stock and pure luck. It was sort of exciting and scary and he grinned, wriggling a little bit. He regretted that instantly. The churning of his insides alerted him to the possibility that he might just (very un-Timelordly) vomit on Martha's nice boots. Swallowing, he covered his difficulties, in the same manner he always did; with talking. "Rather quick prognosis, bit uncertain. Modern medicine is a bit like fastfood, it's fast but you're not always sure they got the order right… Was that rude?"

She kept her body language professional, and the Doctor wondered if this had been part of their problem as Doctor and Companion. He could never tell when she was upset, or perhaps he didn't take proper notice of her.

"Yeah. Rude regeneration this." He put a hand on her arm, "Martha Jones…"

"Haven't seen you in months. Always off saving something. Barely say two words to me when I call…And now, first step off the TARDIS, you get hurt. This why you've been staying away, Doctor? Earth just too painful?"

Martha leaned back, crouched in front of him. The sweep of her bangs and the gleaming yellow circles of her earrings reminded him of when they first met, when she'd been a young medical student with a sense of wonder and an instant fancy for him. Weelll… not instant, it had probably started the minute he kissed her which was for the best reasons—none of them romantic.

But now, with the dark, militaristic clothes, and passionless face, he could only see what Devros has said. He took people and made them into soldiers. His weapons. And that was true of the woman before him. Looking harder, he saw what he needed, wanted, hoped to see; the pain in her eyes. She was still his Martha, his emotional, jealous, sulky Martha.

"Have I?" He said absently, laying a hand on his knee. She was right: Earth was pain. Humans, companions, England, cricket, tea, the whole planet, he loved them, but in the end… humans died, companions left, England elected his arch-nemesis as prime minister, his favorite cricket teams lost, he could never find a cup of proper tea. Oh, and the planet would burn one day. He'd seen it first hand.

So yes. He had been avoiding this little blue-green backwater orb of death and disappointment for a bit.

"Weellll," He grinned, trying not to be too adorable and attractive—he didn't want to give her false hope—"I came when you called, didn't I? Details are all a bit wobbled, as to the whys and what fors…"

"My cell ran into some weird interference so Torchwood helped me out. You can't recall this? This must be more severe than I thought." Her brooding vanished rapidly, and she was fussing over him again. "I'll call an ambulance."

"Ah. No. Won't be necessary at all, Martha." He said rapidly, tried to smile wider but it hurt his face. He did like smiling all sorts of smiles: maniac frenetic smiles, cunning grins and sad smirks (which is quite a difficult thing to accomplish without practice but the Doctor was naturally gifted). He was practically beaming now, trying to prove to Martha he did not need an ambulance.

The Barbaric, archaic technology of earth was something he'd experienced twice and considering the first time it killed him, it was another good reason to avoid his favorite/hated planet.

"Doctor…"

"Barmiest thing, but I have this fear of being lab-rat-Time-Lord. Must be something on my Mother's side. Or maybe it all has to do with my childhood. They're always saying something like that, aren't they? Go into any psychiatrist's, shrink's or healer of the mental distresses' office and no matter the century, it's "tell me about your childhood."" His merry expression melted into one of a more pensive nature. "Or aspirin. Might be all about the aspirin. Something is not right about places of medicine that dispense poison."

Martha looked at him from the corner of her eyes and half-laughed, half-scoffed. "_You're_ obviously not right."

Looked like her independent attitude was reasserting itself. Lovely. Good old Martha, "Come now, Martha," He scolded her with a breezy tone, rising without aide to his feet. "I'm always going on about something, or have you forgotten so quickly. A first grade-rambling-rambler, I am. Still. We should probably get out of this alley…"

Martha's arm encircled his waist and she reached up to guide his arm onto her shoulder. He was about to brush her off, but then again, it would calm her nerves to keep him close and he'd had enough female human companions to know that their nerves were not to be trifled with. He set the pace, not exactly brisk, but not exactly snail-speed either.

"There was nothing slippery in the alley."

"Mmm," The Doctor had been pondering about a cup of Gixley banana coffee, which stuck him as oddly ironic considering bananas peels were known galaxies over for being slippery and Martha had been going on about something… weelll, something slippery. He was about to begin formulating a clever quip when she spoke again.

"So if you didn't fall… Were you attacked, Doctor?" Martha's perfect eyes were now fearful, and her eyebrows hovered high and anxious above them. "So it might still be around!"

"No fear of that, Martha Jones!" A warm cheery voice came from the end of the alley. Leaning with one hand on his blue-box, the woman was dressed in purple from the cap on her head to her lavender sneakers. A periwinkle cravat was tied around her neck and tucked into a striped plum-colored vest and pinned into place. Dangling beneath the cravat was a purple lanyard with a key dangling from it. From her other hand, perched on her hip, hung a silver sonic-screwdriver. "The Doctor's here to save the day, my fine fellow."

"What? What?" The Doctor grabbed at Martha's arm. Cold panic flooded through him.

The purple-creature tilted her head, spinning the sonic-screwdriver (not his, but something very close to it, a more advanced model, perhaps) through her slim fingers. She began to smile at him, a slowly spreading smirk of a practical joker or a canary-eating cat.

Obviously, _he_ was the Doctor. Obviously. She had to be referring to _him _saving the day… except, he eyed her and she grinned back, they both knew she wasn't.

Losing a bit of his memory and getting knocked out was part of the Doctor's job but this purple-wearing woman was something ghastly. It just couldn't be… he couldn't regenerate into a female… could he? Wasn't that against every decent law of nature? He fumbled in his brown overcoat for his brainy specs and stared down them at the creature on the other side of the alley. He couldn't think of anything more to say than a perturbed, "What!?!"

"Doctor Ten! Fancy meeting you here, my dear man!" She bounded over, stopping only to pick up an empty coke can and shove it into the pockets of her long sweater. "Don't you hate litterers! Ugh! It drives me crazy that I spend every waking moment saving this miserable planet from alien invaders and they can't even bother picking up a bit for my arrival. Truly, Martha, I should complain to someone. Perhaps you can think of an appropriate committee, my dear fellow."

She slapped Martha's arm in a friendly, too familiar way and turned her attention to him. In one easy swipe, she hooked her finger on the Doctor's glasses and drew them off. Her freckled face and warm gray-green eyes were young, arrogant and intelligent. Something in her bearing screamed Gallifreyan, although he couldn't determine what it was exactly.

"Could I have those back, please?"

"Certainly, Doctor Ten." She bounced on her heels and crammed the spectacles back on his nose.

"Ow!" He rubbed his nose. That had been painful. This stranger—how he hoped it was not him—seemed to be a bit like a gangly puppy. A might unused to its own skin.

She had stepped back, and was smiling widely and throwing her arms out. "I think its time for a hug!"

"She's daft. Horribly, hellishly bonkers." Martha stared at her, continuing to mutter under her breath about the stranger.

"Now, now, Miss," The Doctor scanned down the outstretched arms, and then back to the woman's face, "I am sure that in some future, we have met—and you've probably fallen madly in love with me, happens all the time—but at the moment…"

The Doctor was feeling considerably better then when he'd woken in the alley, so he shifted from Martha's side to stand on his own. When someone was going about claiming your title and job, it was best to confront them head on, in a strong fashion. Except… the Doctor was in a bit of shock, so he talked about something or other while he tried to think. "…and weellll, you obviously understand the somewhat confusing-"

"…Nature of time-travel. My fine fellow, I live and breathe it, see the depths and waves of time and space and I think this is not the time for a lecture on the top-ic." She split the last word oddly, making a popping sound on her lips. She pulled her cap from her head, revealing a short crop of ginger hair. Stuffing her sonic screwdriver in, she replaced the cap and smiled at both of them. "Shall we get you back to the TARDIS, Doctor Ten? But then comes this extraordinarily horrific dilemma, which TARDIS…yours…" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at his police-box and then pointed behind him, "or mine."

"You have a TARDIS?" Martha gaped.

The doctor turned and saw a blue sports-car with shaded windows with a sign protruding from the roof that read "Police Car". Whoever she was, if the car was indeed a TARDIS, she had fixed the chameleon arch.

"Certainly, my dear past companion. I might be altogether an incredibly wondrous Time Lord but I still can't snap my fingers and magically appear at every distress call the earth puts out. Wait up! Wait up! If you called for Doctor Ten, why'd you send me one too? Is it something so altogether horrific and deadly that it requires a double dose of the Doctor?" She looked saddened by the prospect, "I never get a day off. Why doesn't the earth just stay saved for a bit? I certainly don't mind helping out… but you'd think these villains would learn… and take up hopscotch, instead… Do you fancy hopscotch, Martha? I have become quite good at it… the strange hobbies one takes up after regenerating…perhaps you could both come over – after the aliens are all blown up – and we could all have a cup of tea and a game of hopscotch."

"Hopscotch?" The Doctor nearly choked. He had stopped breathing somewhere during the distressing babble of the woman. So she was the Doctor (or really seemed to believe she was). And she played hopscotch. And wore purple. And hated having adventures. In that moment, he would rather have suffered a plain ordinary human death then to become this bizarre creature before him. It wasn't worth having ginger hair if it brought all these revolting traits along with it.

"I tried ballet. Just not graceful enough. And I hate standing on my tippy-toes." She made a girlish face and stuck out her tongue. "Wait up! We have a prisoner to interrogate… if you don't mind joining me on this adventure."

"Me! Join you?" The cheek! This was _his_ present and _his_ companion and _he_ was the Doctor and this was _his_ "world-saving" moment.

"Brilliant, my fine fellow! We really should do this more often. It is horrifically depressing to do something extraordinary and there is absolutely no one to see it. And you, being a Time Lord and all, can really appreciate my magnif-icence." She parted the last word with that odd emphasis and wandered back down the alley towards his TARDIS, picking up litter as she went and humming an Elvis tune.

"She can't… she can't be you… Can she?"

"Martha Jones," He shook his head, "I am very rarely surprised. But weellll…at the present..."

"Come along, my dear companions!" The purple Doctor was unlocking his TARDIS…

In nearly 70% or perhaps more like 82% of his adventures, running was involved. The Doctor had practice on his side, plus some very nice converse, and so when he wanted to "be off" he was quite fast. Before the imposter in purple bounded up _his_ gangplank into _his_ console room, she was grabbed by her back collar and yanked back into the alley.

"Oi!" She squeaked, rubbing her neck and fluffing her cravat.

"I'll bet you and your kind spent a whole afternoon thinking this little escapade up. 'You know what would be a laugh?' 'Oh, go on, you come up with the best schemes, Bert.' 'Let's trifle with the last of the Timelords'—which is very," the Doctor snapped his fingers twice trying to think of a good word, "…Let's just call it dangerous, eh?"

The woman ceased frittering with her necktie and stared up at him with eyes full of indignation. "When did you become a pessimist?"

"Factual-ist." He invented the word on the spot and slipped the stethoscope in his ears and into place on her chest. "I know for a fact that I am the only Timelord."

One heartbeat, strong and steady. He switched to the other side of her chest, eyes bleary from the bright stripes on her vest and… second heartbeat, slower and weaker, but its very existence was the unmistakable marking of a true Timelady.

"Satisfied, my fine fellow." Her eyes were all twinkly and happy again.

"House?"

"Lungbarrow."

"Impossible. Weelll, mostly, almost certainly, implausible. I'd recognize my own cousin—no matter the regeneration."

"Re-what?" Martha's interruption reminded him that he had better get in the habit of warning his companions about regenerating. He always forgot to and then there was this awkward "Gah, your face!" and "Where's my Doctor!" which made the New Doctor feel rotten and unwanted.

But for now, he was going to ignore Martha. He licked his lips, dread settling into his stomach, and addressed the Timelady. "Prove it."

The woman, the other Timelord, unbuttoned her sleeve and shoved the purple fabric up to reveal a clean expanse of white skin. "Well?"

The Doctor stepped forward, ignoring the soft confused, protesting sounds from Martha. He twisted the tip of his sonic in a series of smooth movements that he thought he'd never do again. Pointing the end at her shoulder, he activated a pale green-gold beam of light. Like luminescent ink, slowly the silvery twisting dragon form appeared on her skin, and beneath it, her Lungburrow cousin number. The markings were faded, aged perhaps by time.

"Doctor? What's it mean?"

"I'm not a liar." The woman stated, "He's not alone. You're… actually, my fine former friend, I have no idea what it means to you. But you can take your pick of the other two." With that, the woman rugged her sleeve down and winked at the Doctor before sobering. Her smile was winsome and wistful and her voice was soft, "You understand now, Doctor Ten? Do you know who I am?"

He extended a finger and poked her cheek. It didn't even feel like him. Not that his skin always felt the same no matter the regeneration, but this skin, her skin, felt all female-like. It was repulsive. Before he could poke her again, she'd caught his hand and squeezed it.

He always thought he'd be able to recognize himself. But apparently not. What more was there to be said? The how and why were all very mysterious but he couldn't argue with proof before his eyes. "Yes. Welll…" He swallowed, stepping back, "someone said something about saving the world?"

Turning on her heels, the woman Doctor raced into his TARDIS, calling out, "Lovely. Let's finish stopping the aliens so we can have tea. Do you like Pringles, Martha? I have boxes and boxes on my TARDIS and no one to eat them with… Ah! Here we are!"

"Don't touch…" He rushed forward, racing up the ramp. But it was too late. She was happily pounding around the console, smashing at the buttons, looking up at him, completely unaware she was scaring him.

"Please, don't touch…" It wasn't like He didn't trust himself…herself… but he did have the TARDIS set up the way he wanted. It was a delicate piece of equipment and even well-meant tampering could…

"Very well. I shall certainly allow you the honor of initiating the final sequence, Doctor Ten." She bowed dramatically, and then busied herself with adjusting her cravat. A split second later, she was hovering over his shoulders as he tried to see what she'd been up to. Whatever she'd done in those few seconds, she'd done a lot of it. She was either: very fast, very smart or very familiar with the TARDIS and it was likely all three.

"I like the back of your head." She flicked the nape of his neck with a purple painted nail. "Even with all that poofyness at the front, you've got enough back here to cover it well."

"I'm glad you approve." Martha muttered. Arms crossed and eyes distrustful.

"My dearest finest Martha Jones, this is a private conversation between Doctors and I am quite certain your opinion is not required." She darted around to the other side of the room, unhinging a cupboard and digging through his storage boxes. "Wait up! Wait up! Doctor Ten, don't bring the ruffian onboard until I've found your… Ah! Here we are! Handcuffs!"

"This is a transmat command… focused on a street two blocks from here."

"Certainly! He was horrifically speedy for being so tall. But I caught up with him, my fine Time Lord! He was trying to escape through a rotating door and I zapped it with Sonic-the-Screwdriver and he's been trapped for a bit."

"Who has been trapped?" Martha demanded, stepping closer to the new Doctor.

"Doctor Ten's foul attacker, Martha! Someone certainly has not been paying attention-atten-atten-attention." She stopped suddenly, dropping to sit on the ledge and setting the handcuffs aside. She lowered her head between her knees and her whole body began to tremble. Great spasms ran across her shoulders and the word attention could still be heard under the woman's breath.

The Doctor and Martha hurried over, Martha reaching for her head to check the woman's eyes and the Doctor tugging out his stethoscope. Then, her head popped up so suddenly, it frightened them both.

"I'm fi-fine. Just 100% brilliant. Top-notch." Her eyes were unfocused and dilated.

"You had some sort of seizure."

"Certainly. Certainly. My fine fellow, I don't remember you stating the obvious so much before… it is a horrific new tick, Martha, and I suggest you crush it with a large fly-swatter." She smiled weakly and glanced shyly at the Doctor, "It's a new regeneration."

"And you're having difficulties with it?"

"I can't decide if I like blue or purple." She chuckled soundlessly, "And I was going to have a bit of a lie down in the Zero Room and then I got Martha's message and weelll…" She sniffed; a perfect imitation of him that made his hearts skip a beat, "my dear boy…"

Her speaking pattern was the First Doctor's now. He'd lived through this – confusion – before. This confusion over which personality, which identity belonged to him. Now, he was seeing the same thing happening to the ginger-haired woman before him. Before he could open his mouth, the woman bounded up to Martha.

Eyes staring straight at Martha, she smiled widely, her expression the oddest mixture of maniac adventurer and carefree wanderer. "This is fan_tastic_! So where was I? Barcelona! Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona."

That would be the Doctor's Ninth Identity. It was all there: the northern accent, slightly toothy smirk, the darkness that ran deep under the easy-going exterior. Her back straight and she seemed more gangly and tough than before.

She plowed on, "You'll love it, Rose, fantastic place-"

"Rose ain't here." Martha said smartly. She seemed shocked at her own bluntness and glanced at the Doctor apologetically.

"Oi, watch it!" The woman wheeled on them, "You should never contradict, the Doctor! The Doctor is always-always-al-al-ways right."

"And you're the Doctor." He said it quietly, soothingly and reached out a hand to her.

"Oh yes. Not some dandy, or some clown or some skinny chap in a dreadful suit." She ignored the hand and began patting her pockets. "I'll bet Susan has my pipe."

"Susan?" Martha glanced at him.

_No Martha,_ he thought, _I'm not explaining any of this. My past is buried deep and this… this Doctor had no right to force me to face it._ Not after all these years of running. "Certain you smoke a pipe?"

"Pipe? No," She looked at the Doctor with the brightest, silliest smile and her hands went up to cling at the vest on either side of her cravat. "What I have lost is… I've lost my recorder. My head is so foggy, a nice musical interlude would be sure to set things right. Perhaps you could call the Brigadier and all the nice UNIT men to help me look…" Her body convulsed, hands reached to cup the sides of her head. She ripped a hair from the top of her head and brought it in front of her face. "I'm going to take you to an airless asteroid, Mel! Look, look at what all of that little minx's carrot-juice has done to my lovely hair…"

"I happen to like ginger, Six." He grabbed both of the woman's hands before she made herself bald.

She struggled, still deep in the throws of the obstinate arrogant personality, before gasping and wrenching away. Her eyes flickered to him, hateful, bitter eyes, and then she went all quiet except for a few involuntary shudders. "The dark, the cold, took my voice and then my will, have you taken my body now?" Blank, teary eyes looked at Martha with apprehension, "Is she going to push me out? Out into the dark? I so loved the humans but they were afraid- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry- I don't belong. Don't push me out. I don't want to be alone. In the cold. In the dark. So alone."

"This is the TARDIS, Doctor." He rubbed her hands, noting that they had strangely gone cold. The Doctor spoke cheerily, "Besides now, Martha and me are right here and one can't be alone if there are more people present, can you?"

He had a suspicion he was oversimplifying. But in a crisis, one didn't ponder philosophy... unless you were him. Which she was. But the point stood... since there was no malicious alien from Midnight present and she wasn't physically alone.

Her face softened, as if the tragedy of Midnight had suddenly vanished from her memory. Sighing gently, she leaned heavily on his side and put her head on his shoulder. "I'm the Doctor, right? I'm the new Doctor? My head hurts, Theta Sigma. I liked the old me. I didn't want to be new. I didn't want to be the Doctor. Can I stop now, my fine fellow? Can I stop being the Doctor, Theta Sigma? Can-can-can, I stop now…?"

"You don't have to be anything, right now." He grabbed her arms, nodding for Martha to grab her legs. "We're just going to move you somewhere where you can have a lie-down. A nice quiet place to sleep."

"My Doctor's back." Her voice was distant and she smiled up at him. Then, she looked even more troubled, "But you'll die. Your song will be over and it will just be me. Just the Doctor. Alone."

"Look, Doctor, everything's alright. Weellll… mostly alright, but once you get back to your normal self," whatever that looked like, "we'll get this all sorted." He situated her on a padded cart that he'd pulled from the wall after ordering the TARDIS to fetch it.

"They shot me." She whispered, "I crawled to the TARDIS and then they started to come in…"

So it had been a traumatic regeneration. Most were. But there was something about being scared silly that made the mind a bit unstable afterward. "Doctor, Martha is going to wheel you down to the Zero Room." He handed Martha a quickly sketched path to the room. "If anything should go wrong, phone me."

"Hey! Why do I have to crate the crazy Doctor to this Zero-whatever?"

"Because you are a medical professional and I am a professional hero. You fix the sick, I will fix the world." It didn't need saying really. Except, apparently it did. "Off you go."

"Doctor Ten!" The woman sat straight up, her cap askew on her head. "I fixed it. I fixed it in the past. Nothing to fear."

"Lovely, lovely. Off you are now, with Martha, there's a fine fellow."

Unbelievable. Now he was starting to sound like her.


	2. Chapter 2

Eyes open. The FutureDoctor awoke in the empty, pale golden room, floating high near the vaulted ceiling and feeling rested and clear-headed. She put a hand to her throat and found the lanyard with her TARDIS key. Good. Everything was all right then.

She pivoted in midair, dropping to the floor lightly and startling Martha who was sitting on a bench by the door reading a magazine. "Hello, Martha Jones. I don't believe we have been properly introduced. I'm the Doctor."

"Really? Cause for a while back, you didn't seem so sure."

"I think it's hormonal. Women have harder times with regenerations." She shrugged. Not quite sure if that was true but it was for her. The OldDoctors had some rough spots in their time but not as frequently and as traumatically as hers. She would be fine, adjusting well and then completely incapacitated. "This must be quite horrifically awkward for you, my fine fellow-"

"Could you stop that?"

"What?"

"The 'fine fellow' business. It's weirding me out."

"Ha." The FutureDoctor brushed her cap from her head and checked to see if her screwdriver was still in place. It was. She was certainly in good form now. "I suppose Martha is adequate?"

"I suppose Dr. Jones is right out?"

"Too many Doctors in this TARDIS already, Martha. Besides, you are a companion and we always use first names on companions." The FutureDoctor retied her cravat. "Cannot imagine why I put this on this morning. I hate purple."

Martha just stared or glared at her. It was hard to be sure which one. On Martha, they looked so similar.

"So… I take it that your message reached me by accident since you have no idea who I am."

"Right." Martha stood, opening the door to the hall. "You're the Doctor, I mean, really, really?"

"Think about it like this, Martha. The Doctor isn't even really the Doctor. The only really real Doctor was Doctor One and then he died and regenerated… so his replacement stole the title and became the Doctor and so on and so forth. Certainly, you can make an argument that the spirit lives on even when the flesh fails and if that is the argument, then I am the Doctor. The Doctor's spirit and knowledge… hence his title."

"And it doesn't…" She paused, "Feel weird?"

"Certainly, certainly. But life is weird. That's why I'm an explorer."

"I mean, being a woman?"

"Don't be daft, my fine… Martha. It's the most natural thing in the world. The weird part is the having memories of men in your head. That's weird."

"I guess. You said you were alone, don't you get companions too?"

"No. I don't." She bounced on her heels, "If there is one thing I learned from Doctor Ten it's that you have to keep you hearts from getting broken and that's good advice, don't you agree?"

"No. I think its rubbish advice."

"You would. You are, after all: a companion."

"And you are all better than me, is that it?" Martha's face grew utterly hostile and she stopped walking.

"Certainly. Had you any doubts?" She whirled away, charging down the halls to the control room, completely unconcerned that Martha might get lost. The FutureDoctor entered and found Doctor Ten's attacker handcuffed to a coral pillar and Doctor Ten leaning against the round console of the TARDIS, staring at the man and thinking.

"I have decided," The FutureDoctor said, striding toward the handcuffed man before whirling in her purple sneakers to address Doctor Ten, "that Martha should go home for tea and let the world saving be left to the professionals."

"You can't just ditch me!" Martha crossed her arms, glaring/staring again as if she was going to do something drastic like get out an Osterhogen key. "I called the Doctor here. You are just an unwanted imposter. Why don't you take your purple vest and your rubbish blue-car and go back to wherever in space it is that you came from? The Doctor and I-"

"My Doctor." The FutureDoctor spat and then stopped, shocked and put on a faint smile. "Wait up! I've just discovered that I'm horribly territorial. Must watch out for that. Just a hop and a skip from weak-kneed green-eyed human jealousy."

"Territorial about me?" The Doctor gave that silly high-pitched Hmph of a laugh. "It's unnerving."

"Yes." The captured man added. "So, which of you is the real Doctor?"

The FutureDoctor turned again, this time a slow turn that ended in a pointed look that was designed to send shivers down anyone's spine… if they had one… some species, don't. Well, in those certain cases, it was supposed to be threatening. And from the way the man flinched and couldn't look at her, it appeared to have been brilliantly executed.

"It's you… isn't it?" The man scooted back to get away from her. "You're the one who's going to kill us."

"Certainly, certainly, my fine fiend." She knelt, hands resting on her knees and reaching to tuck a bit of stray hair from the man's sweat-slicked forehead. "I'm rage and fury and death is my constant companion. And you have been warned and did you bide my warning? You made a choice, and all that remains is to see is if you have left me with any of my own…"

"Doctor!" Doctor Ten sounded shocked.

"You made a grave mistake the day you killed the Doctor…" She laughed, splaying her freckled fingers along the man's cheeks and temple. "Because death makes Time Lord's cranky. Have you ever felt the pull of a black hole, dear debauched Dastron? No? Ever been burned? No? Well, then you'll have to come up with your own analogy of what's to come next."

"Don't." The Doctor tried to reach her. Stop her.

There was no stopping her.

The captive Dastron screamed until his voice went hoarse and rivers of yellowed tears washed down his cheeks, transforming the makeup into thin muddy sheets of pink that dripped of his chin. The dull gray of his own thick flesh flushed a sickly white. And his still human-looking eyes rolled back into his head, revealing ivory emptiness.

The FutureDoctor's hands let go, leaving dark scarlet splotches where she'd gripped him. She wiped her hands on her pants and looked up at Doctor Ten. "I gave them a warning six months ago to get off the planet. They refused. Now they must pay."

"You've known about this all along…"

"I told you, my funny fellow," She rose like a dark shadow, like a Vashta Nerada, like death, and her smile was frozen and false, "I fixed it in the past. Their own ending was written before you even received Martha's summons."

"I won't let you kill them."

"Isn't this your favorite world? Aren't those weak, noxious little ape-creatures your favorite species? Haven't you spilled blood… your own blood… for them? Why should I be any different?" She stepped towards him, cute young face, pale and intense. "This planet is defended, Doctor."

"I can't allow another species to be exterminated! Warn them! Warn them again." He pointed at the captive Dastron, "We'll send him back to his people. He can tell them…"

"They have had six months to change their mind." She pulled her sonic-screwdriver from beneath her cap and aimed it, without looking back, at the captive. His handcuffs unlatched with a hushed click. "But certainly, Doctor, if he can gather his wits… any wits at all… in fact, he is welcome to rush home."

"Go!" He ordered the Dastron, and the gray humanoid lurched for the door like a mindless wild creature. "Always like this with you, eh? No pity. No compassion. Nothing human."

"Someone used to stop me, Doctor Ten." She shrugged, walking to the TARDIS console. "Gone now. But all of your moral high-ground is quite shaking, shifting sand, my dear Time Lord. I know what you are."

"And I'm beginning to see what you are!"

"Wait up, Doctor Ten, you've seen nothing yet." She hit a button on the console and the TARDIS squealed and shook. It was all the Doctor and Martha could do to keep from being bashed silly against the walls, but the FutureDoctor hooked her sneakers about the bottom of the TARDIS console and stayed upright. A moment later, the whirring, squeaking sounds faded and the shaking ceased.

"Where are we, Doctor?" Martha grabbed at the Doctor's sleeve, biting the bottom of her lip and looking to him for reassurance.

"My dear companion," She answered with a smile, "We are one hour in the future. Same exact spot."

"Why?"

"I hate waiting for the inevitable. Much too old to like suspense." The FutureDoctor tilted the screen toward them, "Want to see? Want to see them reject another offer made in good faith? Want to see it end?"

"They might agree to leave our planet alone!"

"No, Martha. Come see, they are too obstinate. Too proud. Too bent on death."

"_The Elevated Dastron Commandant will not be threatened by anyone. We, the commanded, obey his rule without question, we do not fear death, we do not fear Time Lord mindtricks, we only fear the Elevated Commandant's displeasure. Your words have no effect on the commanded."_

"Listen, listen to reason," The Doctor catapulted himself in front of the screen, "There are wonderful beautiful worlds just like this one in the universe. Uninhabited, unclaimed and with the TARDIS, I can easily find you a substitute. There doesn't need to be trouble. Doesn't need to be any deaths."

"_We obey without question. We take no substitutes."_

"You've chosen then?" The FutureDoctor reached up to squeeze the Doctor's shoulder. "You won't be given another chance to…"

"_We do not fear you! We do not fear death."_

"Sorry." She typed a long command code into the TARDIS, fingers flying with grace and accuracy and inhuman speed. Then she opened a toggle, clamped her hand around it and was about to push it down when Doctor Ten covered it with his own hand.

"Would this have been the end of the Earth?"

"It's as certain as the mole on your back."

His jaw tightened and together, they pushed down. The TARDIS rocked back and forth and there was the sound of engines going off and Martha hugged herself. And then all was quiet.

FutureDoctor keyed in another command, and smiled, "All Dastron ships have left the atmosphere, my fine fellow."

"Left?"

"What? You thought I was going to blow them all to kingdom come? Don't be daft. Six months ago, I snuck aboard every miserable blasted mothership and tinkered a bit with navigation and the engines. They are fixed on a nice little planet in a galaxy eons away and by the time, they realize what's happened, they will all have crash-landed on their new homeworld. Are you basking?"

"What?"

"In my magnificence. I certainly hope so." She winked at him, "After all, it took months of planning and working to get this all to happen like clockwork without any deaths. I think I deserve a nice cup of tea? Can you handle that, Martha? Tea?"

"I'm not your maid!"

"Ungrateful miserable human being. I should have let the Dastron eat her heart."

"That what they do? Eat hearts?"

"Certainly. With salt and pepper." She cracked her knuckles and then untied her cravat. "I think I'm going to loose this item. It makes one a bit hot under the collar and all. Well, come now, Doctor Ten, was that not horrifically impressive?"

"Horrifically… good word."

"I think so. It rolls off my tongue like a banana-flavored jelly-baby." She offered him her arm, "Tea, Doctor Ten?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Three: Yanking Each Other About

(Co-written with Wolf with Morals, see my favorite authors for a link to her and her other Doctor Who Fan Fics)

* * *

The female Doctor burst into Unit's headquarters as if invited. Grinning lopsidedly, at the guard who was silently observing with a human weapon of some semi-advanced type, she advanced. She stopped inches from the guard, and leaned on the wall, one hand on her hip, looking as relaxed as if she'd come home after a long day at the office.

"Hello, my fine fellow freedom fighter," Her hand dipped under her cap to retrieve the physic paper, which now had a purple leather cover, and displayed it to the guard. "Future Doctor, I'm with him—well he's with me, actually. Tables turned and machinations of mice and men and so forth. Don't you salute anymore?" She clucked her tongue against her teeth, "Humans!"

"Actually," Martha ignored the Timelady, "She's with me, Coldridge."

"Yes sir." The man saluted Martha and stepped back, to let them pass farther into the hall.

"Oh, by the way-" The Doctor, who had been examining a security alarm near the entrance, glanced at the Time Lady clad in violet. "-I'm not 'with you'. Let's not mix me into the companions, yeah?" Something sad tinted his eyes a moment, his lips twitched in an attempt to maintain a smirk. He muttered under his breath as he passed the ladies. "Tried that once, didn't work out."

The female Doctor seemed to take his comments in stride with a simple quirk of a smile. But her eyes were troubled and she turned to Martha, her voice seeming sharper and more irritated, "Martha, Don't you know that wearing all black and an Osterhogen key does not a hero make? _I_ happen, to not need the help of a fabulously fickle false friend, because _I_ can get into any place on any world in any time…"

Martha stood for a moment, open-mouthed, sputtering to make a reply. But, before she could, the Doctor spoke.

"Let's not call Martha names, shall we? Yeah, she can be bit bland at times. Well, a bit overly emotional at times. Actually she switches between the two..." He turned slightly, frowning, "Martha, how would _you_ describe you?"

His attention was then completely diverted from the little tiff the women were having. Unit had grown since he'd last ambled through its halls. Bit more interesting too. Letting in the fairer gender and all. "Wonder what Alistair would think? Oh, I bet he'd be rolling in his grave. Is he dead now? What year is it...Tastes about 2007? 2011?" His eyes rolled as he pondered the rather acidic air.

Taking strides with his hands safely nestled in his pockets, he let the two women bicker it out if they felt the need. The female Time Lady rushed to keep up with the Doctor, moving as if she was trying to keep pace with him, or even nudge ahead of him.

Martha lingered slightly behind, her voice rather sullen. "So that's it then? I walk the whole of the earth to help you save it, Doctor, and you can't even describe me?"

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth, making a little half-scowl at the accusation that he couldn't describe Martha. That was not true. She was just rather...flexible in _how_ she could be described. She'd started out with such promise, a bit of spunk, a glimmer in her eye. But, when the glimmer in her eye became one for_ him_, things had gone down hill.

"And then, you—whatever this kind of you is—" Martha stopped, grabbing the female Doctor's sleeve, "all you feel for me is condescension?!?"

The female Doctor swung around in one smooth motion, planting both feet firmly on the tiled flooring. "Oh no, Martha Jones, what I feel is certainly not limited to condescension."

"It's not?" Her flawless face raised to meet the other woman's gaze. Somewhere perhaps, in Martha's expression was confusion, some hope perhaps, but the only truly readable emotion was one of suspicion.

"Certainly, certainly, certainly not. Mix in a large bit of betrayal and frustration with equal parts of dramatic disappointment and you begin to see why it manifested in conversation as controlled contempt." The woman in purple shrugged, "You abandoned me…him… us so easily; at one of the darkest hours. I haven't forgotten."

"My family—" Martha's eyelashes fluttered rapidly, perhaps indicating shock.

"Let's not discuss families, Dr. Jones." The female doctor hissed; her fingers trembling slightly as she tidied her cravat. "In fact!" She turned completely around and began walking. "I have nothing further to say to you. Any questions for me can be directed through the Doctor you love _so_ much."

The Doctor's future incarnation was taking some verbal jabs at Martha. He didn't often go about insulting people. Species as a whole were open targets. But, this just seemed more personal and cruel. He kept his lips pressed into a tight line, breathing through his nostrils sharply.

"You're completely mad." Martha muttered, pushing between the two Doctors, unconcerned at jostling them. "I'll get the director."

The female Doctor made no response, instead glancing at the Doctor with a youthful roguish grin. "2009. To be a hundred percent on the nose or tongue if you prefer." She tapped the tip of her tongue with a finger after she finished speaking. "Undoubtedly, they've done something to the air to make it taste so… Wait up…would you categorize it as a salty-vinegary taste or more of a sort of carbonated burning tang? If more of a tang, it could be attributed to Unit's housing of alien technology… I'm sure the uniformed underlings of UNIT have all manner of toys and trinkets…" She stopped suddenly, chuckling, "Magnificent! I may have just out-monologued you."

Once Martha was out of hearing range, he leaned in to speak with his ginger feminine counterpart. She was happily burbling about something along the sort of vinegar crisps and alien technology. He waited until she was done, taking a deep breath.

"What ever your feelings happen to be about Martha, I suggest you subdue them, just a tad. Little self control never killed us, did it? Let's at least try to find something decent to say, no need to go offending the only companion we've got at the moment." He licked his lips and ran a hand through his tussled hair, wondering if that was the wisest way to word that.

"-And she was a good mate for a bit. Then, she went on her 'Save the Doctor' campaign. I really don't even know how that worked. Seems all a bit balmy to me." He sniffled, stretching his face and jaw. Then, watching his Purple-monochromatic regeneration. "Are you sure it's 2009? I'd think things were a bit more advanced, and the air has a bit of oily- Right! I was talking to you about Martha-treatment."

A soldier wandered by, and the Doctor gave a half salute, just so he could collect his thoughts on how to word this diplomatically.

"I don't know how much you remember about Martha. But, she's really not a bad girl. She's no Rose of course, but, she was a good gap-filler. I never meant to let on that...that's all she was to me. Please, she's not much, but, she was at least there. Well...most of the time. Just, act civil. Eh?" He smiled manically at her. He hoped there wouldn't be one of those arguments he'd just listened to. Not really in the mood for a fight, if things went smoothly, they'd be out of UNIT soon.

Too many rough memories roused by his stay here last. He would have to check up on Sarah Jane again someday. He'd been with Rose last he saw her. Ah, Rose again! He scowled a little. Earth was just chocked full of memories he'd rather evade.

The female Doctor paused, reaching for the Doctor's arm. The Doctor allowed her to sidle in and take his arm. Although, keeping himself objective to the fact, she was in fact HIMSELF was a bit tricky. Usually, this sort of thing from a companion meant that they were getting too familiar with him. But, this was him. So, familiarity was...natural. Right?

"No." Her voice was barely above a whisper, "She wasn't Rose. Horrific… how somethings never stop hurting."

Her mention of Rose made the Doctor even more uncomfortable. Thing with Rose, she was_ his_. It was odd to hear this little woman speak in a heart-broken tone about her. About the woman he had planned on- well, none of that mattered now. She was happily off with her fake-Doctor.

He had to stop running into more Doctors

"Now," The FutureDoctor cleared her throat, "I will cease from verbally victimizing Martha, but nothing in time, space or in parallel universes can make me forgive our fickle fair-weather friend."

The Doctor's purple loving counterpart began poking at the wound on the back of his head."That hurt, Doctor Ten?"

"Hey, what's that for, eh? Eh?" He swatted her hand away, and made a face that conveyed his displeasure.

"It's possible your sense of taste is off due to the aggravated assault on you earlier—"

"By the ancient nebula of Gikirin, it _is_ the Doctor!" A round UNIT man in the gold-trimmed black uniform of Unit of the same style as when the Doctor last came, plodded over, with Martha by his side. His smile faltered and he saluted proudly. "Sir! It is an honor, by the starry black depth, an honor! I'm Captain Afton Findock, leader of this station's extraterrestrial exploration division."

The woman at the Doctor's side smiled slyly at the Doctor. "Paperwork?"

"We have so many questions!" Findock stopped only a second for a breath before plowing on. "The Dastrons… how did you defeat them so handily! Did you have any idea of the ship's trajectory—they hit three satellites on the way up—is there any indication of them returning? Do you know their origin? Can you corroborate the evidence that they are cannibalistic? Do you agree with the assessment that they have time-travel technology?"

The Doctor gave what he knew was his most disarming smile, even while bristling at the questioning. He didn't often like having to answer things, not unless it would result in the other person looking confused and feeling silly, thereby learning not to expect another explanation.

"'Ello, Captain 'Afton Findock." A bit of a click on the 'K', the Doctor glanced at Martha, who was seemingly fine with letting this man do the talking. "I'm the-"

He was cut off by the Female beside him.

"Mark this carefully." The female Doctor had raised a hand to halt Findock's onslaught of questions. "You got a pen or a recorder of some type… A. Doctor "magic". B. Yes and sorry about the satellites and I don't know. C. Yes, the planet Dastron, but you won't have any idea of where that is until the end of the 51st century. D… or was it E… definitely cannibalistic if you consider that they eat other sentient aliens… never seen them eat their own, and for the record, my fine fellow, they don't consider it as cannibalism just as you eating a chicken wouldn't be considered by you to be cannibalism…"

The FutureDoctor's chattering made the Doctor seem stupid for assuming the questions were directed at himself. Ah. Never mind. She was just refusing to take a back seat.

Well, why should she? She'd encountered the Dastrons, where as he couldn't remember having ever done so. Well, not beyond meeting her, and then them. Let her talk. Gave him time to wonder what kind of damage they were currently doing to his timeline by being together for so long.

"Although," The female babbled on, "Undoubtedly a bit horrific to wonder what the chicken thinks though. F… lovely letter… it did appear from my explorations of the inside of their ships that they have primitive—yet effective—ways of locating and utilizing wormholes to travel through time and space." She smiled, "Enough discussion of these delicacy-hunting Dastrons… I hope you have tea prepared, Captain Findock."

The human man's blue eyes darted to the Doctor in confusion.

"Yes! Tea, Brilliant Doctor." The Doctor piped in when there was an opening. He decided this could be a good bit of fun. Of course, he wasn't usually one to take the back seat. But, he hated dealing with military types. Let her do it. "- I do assume there is still tea, even in UNIT? Now, the Brigadier, he liked a good cuppa. But, enough about that, questions answered, we about done then?"

His tongue rested on his upper lip, and he leaned back on his heels, rocking as if bored. He looked to the 'Doctor' for her to take control, he'd play companion. It could be fun. He was always up for a bit of insulting UNIT. The sooner they got away from here the better anyway.

The FutureDoctor shrugged at Findock. "Expecting _him_, eh? Time, Space, arms, legs. All a bit complicated and the same at the end of the day—in a manner of speaking, naturally." She sucked air in one brief gasp, "Well, my solid soldier, you may address me as FDR."

The Doctor kept his tongue firmly pressed to his inner cheek. Allowing only a mild smirk to twist his lips as the new 'FDR' continued to rule the conversation.

"Wasn't he an American president?" Martha said, eyeing the Future Doctor. There was something uneasy and unhappy in her eyes.

"Yes." Findock perked up, "And amazingly, starry host above, we have evidence that he might have been an alien."

"Certainly, certainly. Most of your human leaders are."

Findock and Martha stared. The soldier rubbed his forehead as if in pain. Probably because that meant more paperwork.

"Are you serious?" Martha's voice seemed rather squeaky.

The FutureDoctor busied herself with straightening her cap, ignoring Martha's comment until Findock repeated it. "Can't be a hundred percent, my fine fellow, but you miserable human beings rarely accomplish anything unless aliens were involved. Now then," She smiled, "FDR will be fine. I like acronyms… kind of like the TARDIS… FDR…Future-Doctor-Really."

"Bonkers." Martha pronounced.

"Tea." The FutureDoctor shot back.

Findock lead them to a large round room with the ceiling several stories up. Light streamed from numerous skylights, splashing against the pale blue walls and slate tiled floor. Green leaves reached heavenward from potted plants in the center of an island amidst a spraying fountain and vines climbed up Grecian style columns. Uniformed soldiers chatted in cozy groups around small round tables and scientists in white labcoats joined them, or headed to a small café to their right.

"The Atrium, perfect place for stargazing at evening…" Findock wandered away, motioning to a grouping of white-shirted waiters. In moments, two tables had been joined, a clean linen spread on them, and teacups and plates sorted into places.

The Doctor's eyebrows nearly met his hair-line when he saw the little tea set. They'd actually made him tea. That'd never happened under the Brigadier. Best he got was Harry chasing him around ordering him to the sickbay. Well, if Bessie hadn't been an absolute demand for his services, he could have counted-Eh? His eyes wandered to the tea. UNIT wasn't exactly always looking for his best interests.

Paranoia crept in. He fingered the rim of the china and opted not to drink right away. He didn't know these new UNIT men, and he certainly had no reason to trust them. It was all a bit convenient, easy to get in, tea prepared, no guns blazing yet. It was certainly not like in the 'old days'. And he didn't know which he liked better. Or if he liked either. Or if he liked the smell of this tea. Smelled cheap. He wrinkled up his nose and noisily allowed it to end up back on the table with the other…stuff.

The FutureDoctor, however, had settled in with a sigh, flaring the sides of her coat so the edges settled in her lap. She smiled triumphantly, lifting a slim china cup into the air, expecting it to be immediately filled with tea. And, instantly, a waiter approached with a teapot and filled it. The FutureDoctor sipped, sharing a secretive smile over the cup's rim. "Like my Doctor was saying, any more questions, Findock?"

Findock looked up from setting a chair into place, his smile faltered, "By the starlight, do you really have to rush off… FDR? Doctor?"

The Doctor tensed a bit in his chair. His eyes watching Findock with a dark gaze. Why was he so nervous? Would things get tetchy if they decided it was time to leave? That smile was just a wee bit…forced.

"Certainly, certainly, only… after tea." She glanced over the settings on the tabletop. "My fine fellow, have you any Pringles?"

"Never liked Pringles." The Doctor began, "They're not enough like proper crisps, eh? A bit crumbly, hand can't fit in the little tube. What if it does then? You can't get it back out. Nasty little buggers." He glanced to 'FDR' to see if she was as uncomfortable as he was. Surely, by the time he'd ended up as her, she'd…he'd…THEY, had learned to read body language. And understand that he really wasn't talking about Pringles, so much as being trapped… here… like a hand in a Pringle tube.

She merely stared at him. Looking slightly offended by his lack of appreciation for the apparent snackfood of her choice.

The Doctor rolled his tongue across his teeth and tilted his head. "Oi. FDR. Terrible thing to do. You do realize that_ no one_ can say that. It's gonna be 'FD-_ahh_'."

Babbling was all that was going to be contributed. He really was getting jittery. His legs twitched under the table. "Now SCOTTISH. There's some lovely 'R's'! You can roll them-Used to love that. Love to say 'R's' back in the day. Oi. How about we cut to the chase..."

His attention shifted, pinning onto the uniformed man. "I _don't_ report to UNIT anymore. I'm not _interested_ in getting involved, and I certainly am not going to take tea." His feet bounced him upward, and he jolted from the table.

"I'll be in my Trailer." He announced in a Scottish accent and over rolled the 'R' that was lingering in the middle of the last word. He sniffed deeply once, and wondered if this all had something to do with his head injury. Wouldn't doubt it. It was his luck.

The FutureDoctor reached up, took hold of the seat of the Doctor's long coat and with a sharp movement, yanked him back down into the chair. His neck was snapped back with the attack on the hemming of his coat. His scuffed trainers left the floor, leaving him to find the ground in their absence. Luckily, his chair obliged itself to keep the last of the Time Lords from furthering the work of gravity.

Utterly uncomposed, he slammed into the chair and wheeled his arms to keep from flipping it over backwards. Once his balance was regained, he watched the little woman in violet smile apologetically at Martha, Findock and the rest of the resting and relaxing Unit employees. She was attempting to share 'knowing glances' with the others! As if she was among these humans, sharing their secrets and he was a naughty pet that didn't know a bloomin' thing.

"Doctor Ten," the projection of her higher-than-normal-tones was lessened, controlled, arriving with secretive whisper instead of arrogant proclamations. The Future Doctor leaned back in her chair, tucking her ankles behind the two front legs of her chair. "I take your distemper in stride, attributing it to your recent injury—for I know that you wouldn't forget that Unit is on our side. Certainly, certainly, we don't report to them… but they cannot merely be brushed aside. They're one of the only peoples in the Universe who want to actually save the Universe! How can you have forgotten that?" Her normal boisterous tone returned as passion flooded her face in a pink flush of color. "So no… I don't report to them, but I fill them in so the next time cannibalistic food gourmets' lust for human flesh, they can be better prepared! Are taking five minutes out of your non-ending tourist trip through time so utterly unreasonable?"

The flesh around the Doctor's lips tensed as he began to feel a burning flush come to his face. He leaned in, seething gently through his teeth. Attempting, for the lives of him, not to seem as flustered as he was. Not often he was tugged about like a dog on a leash.

A bit more scolding came from 'FDR', and his attention drifted to the soldiers around the table. Uncomfortable. He remembered these moments when one of his children would misbehave. Where no one dared say a thing, but, all where waiting for some form of punishment for the daft behavior.

The FutureDoctor paused, slim fingers darting under the purple cap on her head, and fishing about until she found what she was looking for. The FutureDoctor withdrew a tattered scrap of age darkened paper, splashed with flowing handwriting that looked vaguely familiar, sections highlighted with purple and blue markings and pieced together with human scotch tape. Her scrap of paper was being held reverently. From scolding to babbling, her list made The Doctor's attention waver from anger to confusion.

"In regards to the taking of tea at this time," she scanned the paper, tongue trapped in the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, "That's rule number 10 and following them in order, or in best order one can, and taken literally, this fulfills that need. Plus the whole connection with Unit rule. So really, actually, certainly, certainly, we are saving time by combining rule 9 and rule 10 of the list. Then we can be off."

And she smiled cheerfully at him before greedily slurping from her teacup and setting it on the table.

"Are you Bonkers? Honestly? What is it that is wrong with you? Because I really don't know what went wrong. But, how dare you be condescending to me? I have my reasons for hating this place." He leaned in close and rose from his seat. Some of his hair drifted into his eyes, and he chose to ignore it.

The purple woman looked confused, uncertain for a moment, afraid almost… perhaps of his displeasure. As the Doctor got closer and closer to her face, the FutureDoctor held her breath. The pinkish blush on her cheeks deepened into a crimson only a shade lighter than her freckles.

"Yes. They have every right to be able to save their own planet!" The Doctor pulled back, throwing his arms out in frustration, feeling the need to release the pent up anxiety and expression. "Don't you think I am sick of it? Don't you think I just want them all to solve things themselves?"

The FutureDoctor's eyes followed him as he ranted; her face somber. "We have got to follow the List…live by the List…"

"Worlds burning and empires toppling. Have you added that one to your list? Eh? Eh?" He pulled himself inward, his limbs regaining their natural place at his side. "I don't know where you went wrong. Tea, humans and…lists! But, don't you DARE try to oppose me. I want nothing to do with Earth right now. You of all people should know why. But, you're fitting in too well." His insult left him feeling a bit hollow. He'd done his bit, trying to fit in with the humans, letting them think he was similar and hoping for something lasting. But, everything fell apart, and he'd just destroyed one of the most shining and brilliant things in all of creation. She was here somewhere. Unawares and utterly…average.

Deep in his hearts, he knew this was too slow moving. When things were not at break-neck speeds, there was too much time to think and too regret.

Earth was nothing but regrets.

"Why shouldn't I fit in?" She pounced suddenly from her chair, sending it backwards to skitter along the floor. With an elegant leap, she had planted herself on the tabletop, her feet steady as the table wobbled beneath her. Somehow, she had managed to land beside the sugar bowl and the plate of biscuits and had not spilled a single drop of tea.

Every inch of her small lithe frame, was tense and she stared down at him, fully intent on showing that he did not intimidate her. She was going to oppose him if she felt she had to.

The incredible maneuver onto the table kept him from stepping away. She was attempting to gain an advantage, even if it was only in height. His legs planted firmly, and he faced up at her. Refusing to cower in a gaze that he had used many times. A gaze that could be used to send kings from their thrones and the high council from their comfort.

Mimicked in the hazel depths above him, he saw himself.

She began practically bellowing from her place atop the tea table "Is there a rule… somewhere on your list, perhaps? That I should _always_ run about like a beheaded fowl without a mouth to breath and a mind to think? Chase after one adventure after another and never make any friends but one at a time? Insist and wish the humans would 'catch-up' and then do nothing to help them do it?"

She laughed, a horrid high sound, stepping closer, eyes narrowing. "But I forgot… things like tea are too domestic."

"These are not friends-" The Doctor motioned around the nigh-empty space. "-These are frightened people. People looking out for their own good! They're not here to care, they grab what ever seems convenient and bleed it dry! They drain, and they die, and then you're left empty and alone." His eyes drifted to Martha, his anger beginning to shift its focus for a moment.

"You don't know what that's like do you? No. Of course not. You can flee home to your Mum when things get too painful." His venomous words were oft thought when dealing with her. But, he had tried to keep himself from freeing them. Although he had grown angry with 'FDR' for her abuse, he was too worked up to view his own hypocrisy at the moment.

The Future Doctor scowled. "This, for once, is not about Martha. It's about you and how you can…" She turned, scanning the faces of the watching soldiers, addressing them. "He can face a horde of ravenous slime wolves from Xranex 6 but can't cope with a simple thing like actually standing still for a biscuit. Just because he's got a time-machine, nigh-immortality, a clever wit and a loud mouth—"

"Please don't." Martha held her hands up, glancing back and forth between the doctors. "Tempers have flared, yeah, but…"

"It doesn't make you Time Lord Victorious! Who do you think you are, Doctor Ten? A god too good for tea with mortals?" She stepped forward, narrowly, mysteriously avoiding planting a toe in a tray of jammed scones. The FutureDoctor appeared as she had with the Dastron, in all the fiery passion and burning darkness of a TimeLord. "I don't know where _you_ went wrong, Doctor Ten."

The Doctor put his attention back on the spritely Time Lady on the table, she was beginning to hit too deeply. He didn't want to talk about this. He didn't want to think about it, and all he wanted was to get to the TARDIS.

Now.

But, his fight had not finished and he refused to flee in the face of this petite abuser. His hands gripped the plastic cloth on the table and he pulled it. As the tablecloth was ripped from beneath her, flowing and rippling like a cresting wave, the FutureDoctor let out a soft yelp.

Dishes shattered to the floor, tea splashed around the Doctor in aromatic pools. The table collapsed, sending his counterpart downwards from her pulpit. Landing on the floor and what remained of the table, the woman stared at the Doctor.

He crouched beside her, returning the look she had just given him. "I am no god. And I certainly have not been victorious, in much of anything really. But, I certainly know who I am, and what it is I do. I save lives and I destroy them. I rescue as many as I can and others must burn. They simply must."

The FutureDoctor frowned, slinging tea-wet hair from her eyes and attempted to raise herself from the mess of china, pools of hot tea, crushed sugar lumps and squashed pastries. She tried to use her hands to push herself up. She muttered a Gallifreyan curse, and her right hand shot from the floor. Popping her blistered fingertips into her mouth, she was silent during the rest of the Doctor's speech.

Words only for her ears escaped his lips, as the Doctor allowed a rare tightening in his throat to strangle his whisper. "Please. Just don't. I just want to go." She really could not be so dense as to be unawares. He'd just lost Donna, his chance at real companionship. A real mate. One who understood and could challenge him and hold him back.

If he had to let silence sink in, he would have to think about his reaction to Donna. And his remedy. That was simply something he would NOT allow. There was nothing to do but move forward.

And being trapped on earth with unit was a HUGE step back.

"Please, F. Just finish." He slowly rose to his feet, feeling far older then the body he currently inhabited. His intention to wander off down the halls was only inhibited by his wondering which door it was they had entered from, and which hall would be correct.

"So much for tea." Her voice was full of regret and hurt, her burnt fingers still half-vanished into the Time Lady's mouth.

Soft remorse at his actions, her tone hurt the Doctor more then it should have. He'd actually injured 'FDR', he'd rarely taken out anger on someone. Especially a 'companion'… he brushed away a memory of the fear reflected in Peri's eyes from so many years ago.

The Doctor watched the little female attempt to gain some form of dignity. He quickly began regretting throwing her around. Was he_ really _so short tempered? Where had all this rage bubbled up from? He licked his lips, trying to seem unashamed of his outburst.

There had to be a more pleasing reason, rather then just being…was he the one that was scared? He quickly tried to push the thought away._ No_. Why would _he_ fear humans and their planet? He was a Time Lord, and their comings and goings were hardly even a ripple in the time stream.

The wet purple woman looked at the Doctor, and after a few moments, smiled impishly and spryly sprang to her feet. "Time Lord obstinacy, Doctor Ten! I suppose something never change, no matter the regeneration."

His confused thoughts were broken as he saw extended fingers with purple polish extend from the FutureDoctor for some form of a truce. The Doctor took it, gently, and laced his fingers through hers for only a moment before releasing.

"All right, no more yanking each other about… but I'm still right and you're still wrong but I'll let you be wrong… for now, anyway." She shrugged, straightening to her full, tiny height. "More important things to do rather then spend all day insulting each other—we might go on for decades—there's plenty of character flaws to choose from." A wry smirk appeared on her lips, as if the mentioned character flaws were hers as well, and she rubbed pastry frosting from her cheek.

As if she suddenly remembered something, she began rapidly patting her pockets. Pulling a notebook from her jacket, The FutureDoctor flipped to a blank page, laid it on the remains of the table and stared at it with intensity. A fine handwritten scrawl appeared with columns and boxes of different categories… all about the events of the day and the Dastrons. In one smooth motion, she licked the tip of her finger, separated the page from the rest of the notebook and handed it to Findock.

"Your report, Findock." She saluted the human. "The tea was lovely."

Reporting to UNIT. Ha. She even filled out paper work. The Doctor had avoided doing that like mad. Especially when he worked for them.

Curious.

The FutureDoctor turned to the Doctor, her smile faltering for only the briefest of seconds. "So, my troublesome Time Lord, I can I travel with you for a bit, or what?"

Her words were spunky, but, his diminutive counterpart seemed particularly vulnerable at the moment. He tilted his head a little. All her fire, and yet, she looked scared he would reject her.

He should. He really should. The irreparable damage they were doing to his timeline. The laws against interference in one's own life.

Well…he'd never been too fond of listening to those rules anyway.

He pulled her aside a bit, and turned his back to the humans. His voice dropped to a whisper, and his eyes watching hers warily. "You know the laws against that. Well, of course you do-" His tongue reached up and touched just above his upper lip while he thought. At the same time, his hand ran through his mussed hair.

"-For a bit. I think…I could use that. Just for a_ bit_ then, eh?" He glanced at Martha, who was heading at them. A glint in her eye meant something. What it was, he still couldn't figure out.

"Oh. Hello again, Martha. Thanks for the help. Nice place you've got here. Tea could have been better. Love your hair, and that coat is terribly slimming." Brightly, he cut off what ever her intent had been to speak. Rattling through the sentences with speed, he thumbed at the FDR. "Big things to do. Worlds, galaxies. You know. Really, you do then._ So_, lovely to see you. Hope your Mum is well and I'll probably pop back for a visit sometime then, eh?" By 'sometime' he meant never. He hoped Martha knew that.

He was backing up slowly, hoping she wouldn't ask to come. He didn't hate Martha. Certainly not. She was a good human. A good _person_. She just was not cut out for his sort of life. He didn't want her to think he had something to offer that he just couldn't.

Rose had never demanded stability and a 'normal' life. Loved her for it. She understood.

Another chance then. A Time Lady. She'd understand. She'd understood. She was him.

Why did he have the feeling, that this _could be_ a great Companionship?


	4. Chapter 4

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Four: A Sexist TARDIS

* * *

However, the tea incident, as the Doctor had termed their little leadership spat—which is what it did boil down to—did very little to actually propel them from Unit onto some adventure. While she had sort of caved into him, she still couldn't just leave. She made sure that she had been saluted at least six times by everyone, challenged several commanding to hopscotch championships (at a future date, thank Rassilon) and made it well known that next time she saved the world, she expected flowers from Unit. Lilacs preferably.

"Finished yet, are we?" The Doctor prodded, scrubbing the lower half of his face with his hand. He had just returned from having his head checked over by Martha (besides a bump and a bruise or two, he was perfectly fine, just like he'd been telling everyone) and rearranging her medicine cabinet to hide the aspirin in the back. He'd said a quick, strained goodbye to his former companion and found the FutureDoctor waiting for him at Unit's Atrium's exit. He spoke first, "Did you know that Martha has enough medical equipment stashed in her tiny little office to open up a warehouse? Aw, do you think she's stocking up for Armegeddon? Maybe I should tell her she's got a few years yet. Or maybe text her… I do that now know, you know. Texting. A little low-brow-low-tech never killed anyone…well, actually it has…"

He paused, straightening the collar of his long jacket. The Unit soldiers looked properly in awe of the both of them, however, the degree and type was vastly different. They feared him. They were still in shock of her.

Waste of time. This whole thing.

"This is all important, Doctor Ten." The FutureDoctor grinned up at him, practically leaping in place with joyous energy. "In three minutes and a half, I have made myself unforgettable."

"I'd say you've done that, yeah…" He began walking out the door, finding his way out of Unit easier than expected. "I suppose the hopscotch challenges were on the list?"

"Certainly not, my fine fellow! But believe it or not, I have been preserving the timeline while you had your head examined." She held the door open for him, and they passed from the sanitized air into the cool wet breeze of nature. Soft ripples of rain spread across the vast parking lot that held military jeeps, a tank, a blue policebox and a blue sportscar of some type. The Doctor knew many things but he couldn't identify the model of the vehicle that the FutureDoctor cloaked her spaceship in.

"Rain!" She squealed, clamping her cap tighter on, until her ears stuck out rather ridiculously. Reminded him vaguely of Nine. Still… she had been saying something interesting a moment ago.

"Preserving the timeline?"

"Years from now," she grabbed his hand, and dragged him toward her TARDIS. While their converse slapped the pavement, splashing gravelly water onto the hems of their pants, the FutureDoctor spoke between panting. "You'll be trying to think of something to say to a beautiful woman," and then she winked at him, "and you'll come up empty. A rarity, I know, my dear Doctor. So you begin regaling her with a humorous tidbit from the past. How one day, after Unit has been told you've regenerated and you save the world from some horror… you are presented with a bouquet of roses!" She laughed, leaning against the side of her TARDIS and unlocking it with a key from around her neck.

"That's it? You're setting up my embarrassment so I can impress a woman?"

"Well," she sniffed, imitating him with a twinkle in her eye. "It's better to laugh at yourself then at her profession."

While the Doctor was still puzzling over that, the FutureDoctor opened the car-TARDIS door.

"Watch your step, Doctor Ten!" She bent down and crawled into the control room. While he could see the TARDIS ramp, the doorway configuration was that awkward sports car door shape and it did make getting in a bit tricky.

Inside, it was gold and coral like his TARDIS but the room was a complete disaster. He would have used the FutureDoctor's term of "horrific" but it seemed an understatement. On the catwalk that surrounded the console were crates, suitcases and shopping bags tied down with duct-tape. Large wicker baskets hung down from the coral and the catwalk, stuffed with folded sets of clothing, alien money or boxes of tea. On the floor, among all the crates of Pringles, were large dog-eared photo-albums, an ancient looking telescope, a haphazard looking table and chairs (all of them built out of wooden boxes).

"I thought you didn't like litter," He kicked aside a fallen box of tea packages.

"Hmm?" Her head darted up from where she was digging around in a crate by the console. "My dear Doctor Ten, this will all be cleared away soon. I am not to blame I-"

There was a pinging sound and a bolt flew from the TARDIS's console, arching straight toward the FutureDoctor's eye. She ducked just in time, waving her cravat above her like a white-flag, she began circling around, crouching behind boxes, squinty nervous eyes on the console. "Wait up, TARDIS, wait up-"

Another bolt came flying in her direction and she fell back with a cry.

"That's enough of that." He strode over. The moment he put his hands on the smooth metal of the console, the whole tone of the TARDIS's humming shifted from an unsatisfied whine to a pleasant purring. The lights which had been dark, brightened and the shadows around the corners of the circular room faded.

"Just fine. Besides the black-eye." She crawled out, smiling like a little girl and seated herself on a box. "She's happy to see you."

"Weellll, I am rather brilliant, if I do say so myself." The Doctor grinned; feeling oddly rejuvenated like one often did after collecting a new companion. He leaned his elbows on the console, bending to cup his thin face in his hands. "Yet," he mused, "She's not happy to see you. Why is that?"

"Our TARDIS is sexist." The FutureDoctor glanced at the console with a bit of irritation, "She's never liked me. Last regen, the very vengeful vehicle kept trying to direct me out airlocks and drop the floor out from under me so I'd drop into the pool… all sorts of mischief. So I holed up in here. I had my bed," she pointed to a huge object covered in a sheet, "and everything else I needed transferred to the control room."

"Ha." He laughed, "Sexist, yeah? I thought there was a reason why Rose kept ending up in broom-closets."

"Horrific. Are you just going to stand there and egg her on?" The FutureDoctor frowned, opening a canister of nacho-flavored Pringles and began popping them into her mouth. "All these years we've been mates," She stared at the glowing green column, pointing at it, "but as soon as… She's certainly not a lady!"

The sound of the TARDIS's engines shifted back to the frustrated, sad sound they had before she had attacked its new mistress. The FutureDoctor flinched.

"Come here," He held out his hand to the FutureDoctor, smirking. This must be one of the silliest, strangest and spectacular adventures yet. It was one of those things he'd never thought he'd be doing, playing peace-maker between his wonderful TARDIS and the impish new owner.

The FutureDoctor bounded over.

He took her hand, and placed it on the console, "She likes to be talked to. She's a valuable piece of equipment, the last of her kind too," He was inches from the console now, whispering in TARDIS-talk, which could be mistaken as human-baby talk, "the smartest bravest spaceship there ever was…"

He straightened, "And it's nice to always greet her when you come in. Let her know how happy you are to be home."

The lights flared bright and the humming got softer. The FutureDoctor laughed, "I could never be that charming but… I'll give it a try."

Fifteen minutes later, the pair of Doctors parked the Doctor's TARDIS inside the FutureDoctor's TARDIS which is not a hard thing to do if you were a clever Time Lord with spaceship that had an infinitely large interior, yet a measurable exterior—although companions would have had a hard time grappling with even the idea of it—and the Doctors sent the ship into the time vortex.

Later, the two Doctors were elbows-deep in grease and gears, giving the FutureDoctor's TARDIS an overdue maintenance check. Crawling under the ship's console, they traded Gallifreyan-style riddles and compliments to the TARDIS. The ship was almost silent, content to be patted and flattered and warm with company.

"I think I've ruined this dratted thing." The FutureDoctor smeared another glob of greenish oil on her cravat and then dropped it into a crate marked 'trash'. Unlike the Doctor, who could go through almost every situation in perfect cleanliness, she was a rumpled mess. "I'm going to wash my face and get out of all this purple… I'll be right back."

"Fine." He sat down and reached for one of the photo-albums. It was strange. Gallifreyans used holograms, not still snapshots but this book was crowded with them. Pictures of inventions, otherworldly sunsets, laughing alien children, postcards from touristy places on earth, but it was rare to find a picture of someone who fit the bill for a Doctor or a companion. The FutureDoctor appeared to have been on her own for quite sometime.

"Wait up!" The book was snatched away and the woman's eyes flashed at him. They were bright with fury and a bit of panic. "Just because you're invited over for tea, doesn't mean…? Like River said, spoilers and all, Doctor Ten."

He just sighed.

"Do you want tea or…?" She looked nervous. Like she didn't have any proper china and hadn't had a visitor in thirty years. Which of course, was a distinct possibility. He noticed that she was clutching the book to her chest like she was afraid to let go of it. Was she really that terrified of a paradox, frightened that he'd know a little bit about her, or that he would have damaged something so precious? It was hard to tell.

"I don't know. I just… I…" She stammered, looking so different from the bombastic rude creature that had abused Martha, that he wondered if she'd experienced another regeneration.

She was frowning now, backing away, "I didn't mean to abuse her."

"What?"

"I didn't mean to abuse Martha."

"What…?"

Her lips formed a small oval and she looked flustered, taking position in the chair across from him and hunching over to look at him. Her look was searching and curious but it felt intrusive anyway. Suddenly a rush of crammed words on streams of consciousness flooded, pounded, roared through his mind with such frightening force that he gasped. It wasn't that the words, whatever they were saying, were hurtful or rude, or that the emotions behind them were rough and depressing, it was completely the opposite but there was so much of it that he felt like his eyeballs were going to pop out and float away.

"Eyeballs…That's a visual for you, my fine fellow. Or from you." She shrugged, and the drowning sensation began to lessen. There was still an enormous amount of thought and being just out of reach but it was being held off, the FutureDoctor was pulling away.

"How long have you been… reading me?" It wasn't a polite term, and would never be used on Gallifrey where it was only natural that the people should reach out and touch the surfaces of each others thoughts. Well, only the vaguest surfaces since anything else would be considered an invasion of privacy. But he remembered now, the feeling, the hum, the warmth of friendly voices emanating from friends' and families' minds, reminding him of how connected they were, how he belonged, how much he was loved…

Instead of answering, she just tilted her head. The press of her mind was gentle now, an ocean wave breaking against his cold lonely soul, and whispering something he couldn't make out. Instead of intensifying, she left it there, a bright golden voice humming along with the TARDIS's psychic connection. It wasn't frightening, this time, instead it was good. It made him feel…connected, safe, loved…

He rubbed at the lower half of his face, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. "It's been a while."

"Certainly. Being last of the Time Lord's doesn't give you a lot of practice time. Although, you could probably bowl me over if you wanted to… I'm not much of a powerhouse of Gallifreyan energy. Getting old." She reached out and patted his hand, sparking a few milliseconds of sharp stabs of psychic transference, "And, I haven't been 'listening' in on you. I just wanted you to know…"

"What?"

Then the voice poured in, soft and amber and bubbly, like a softened version of her personality. There were words, distinct in the feelings:_ You are not alone… I will watch over you, always, forever. I have your back... as long as I can, I will keep you safe. You're my best mate… You're my Doctor…_

"Don't. Just don't."

She let everything fade back to the golden hum and there was no change in it. No disappointment. No frustration. No sadness. Beneath the hum, she was still saying the same exact things, if he'd wanted to hear them. And she was still smiling. "This will never change. Nothing you can say, nothing you can do, can change it, Doctor Ten. I've got a horrifically strong heart and a wicked stubborn streak."

"I can't take anymore broken promises." He swallowed, rubbing the back of his head, as if to massage away the telepathic connection. He wanted to break it, to get this deep, unwanted, un-sought for, affection buried back in her head where it belonged. But it would be like someone had ripped him in half, gouged out his eyes and made him blind. Gallifreyan telepathy was an important sense, one that had gone dormant since that run-in with the Ood, but now the world was glorious again. He'd been crippled and now he was whole and he couldn't bear to go back to a shriveled empty husk.

"Doctor Ten!" She had to raise her voice to get his attention. "I'm not Martha."

"Now, FutureDoctor…thing, I hate to be a bit blunt—but you know what? That's a mite obvious."

"Martha didn't love you. And that's why I can't abide to look at her. All those wonderful companions, Sarah, Rose… Susan, they loved you until it broke them into tiny shattered bits and then they loved you some more." She was opening another canister of Pringles now. So busy with the foil-inner lid that she couldn't look at him. "And you think that made them weak? They are the bravest women in the universe and they were true and they were faithful… Ah. Here we are." She laid the crumpled lid on the tabletop and gave a cheeky victorious grin. "But Martha, she ran off to her family… all _five_ of them… and left you all _alone_ just after you'd lost him."

The image of the Master appeared before both of their eyes, lingering in the telepathic link flowing between them, and then vanished with the disturbance of other rippling thoughts.

He cleared his throat, looking at the tip of his converse. His normally contagious joyful attitude subdued into what Donna had called his "drowned stray kitten" look. She had made a few additional comments about his hair and weight when criticizing his more withdrawn moods. Generally, as understanding as most companions were, they hated self-pity. Especially when their Doctor—who seemed to have such an amazing life to them—displayed it.

"Truth is," He let the statement fall emotionlessly from his lips, "I was ruining Martha's life."

"Then let it be ruined! You don't love because it's going to be all sunshine and flowers and milk-chocolate jelly-babies! You do it because you care about someone else more than whatever you're feeling or thinking or wanting. You just suck up all your pain and keep giving it out because they need it!" She was on a rampage now, spewing pringle-crumbs onto the table in a very unladylike manner. "And you needed her and she abandoned you and I can't stand her!"

And there it was again, that deep mature unwavering affection that you have for a child or a parent, and he knew that no matter what he said or did, or how he argued it with her… The FutureDoctor was going to be his best mate, no matter what. It was a little terrifying, almost like meeting a stalker or some oddball version of yourself, in the future that wanted to be your buddy. But through the connection, it felt okay. She wasn't going to hurt him and she wasn't going to stay. She was just trying to help him. While she was here.

He grinned, "Aw, you are territorial, aren't you?"

"Oh yes." Her eyes twinkled. "Want to see Bessie?"

* * *

On the blue and green orb that held present-day humanity, Martha Jones was easing out of conversation with Findock. He had too many questions. And while the Doctor was like fire, he was also like a riddle. She'd traveled with him but, occasionally, it felt like that only made one more aware of how very secretive and mysterious the Doctor truly was.

"I'll file a report in the morning, kay?" She backed away, saluting quickly. Findock, a capable man but with the heart and soul of a dreamer, turned his ponderings inside. She left him in center of the darkening Atrium, staring up at the first stars of the night, barely visible between the clouds.

Her foot caught on a shard of china. "Someone better clean this up!" She bent to check her boot for scratches and saw a scrap of something white and rumpled beneath a platter of upturned scones. Tentatively, she pried it free and drew it to her face.

"Seriously?" She whispered. It was that prattling egotistical woman's "FutureDoctor List". Fascinated, she ignored the rest of the mess and scanned the paper. The most surprising thing was not the highlighted sections and the attempt at renumbering the absurdly erratic original bullets but the handwriting. "Not the FutureDoctor's list… the _Doctor_'s list. My Doctor's list…"

The questions piled up, why would her Doctor write a list when he despised it so much today? Why would the gallant last minute planner that she had traveled with, actually slow down to write himself an instruction manual?

She looked up from the place she knelt by the tea-table carnage and stared into the sky with Findock. Two humans…sharing the same questions about the same person… and have no other option than to dream up possible replies.

She came out of her meditative state when she saw the silent man stalking to a seat with a plate of apple pie. "Coldridge, Leave that for a second, would you? Lock this up in the vault. I'll send instructions for it in the morning."

Coldridge set down his snack and reached for the list, vanishing from view in a moment. Martha Jones hugged herself, feeling oddly alone and yet important at the same time. The next time the Doctor came to earth, he'd have a mystery of his own to solve. The Mystery of the List… it sounded like a Nancy Drew title or some sort of amateur hard-boiled private eye novella… but it did balance the scales a little.

Martha smiled. Then her mobile went off. She flipped it open and checked the caller. "Hi, Mum. Did you have a good weekend…?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Four: A Sexist TARDIS

* * *

"Mother, mother, shall I die…?"

The Doctor shocked awake, startling the FutureDoctor into missing a step and crumbling to the floor of the TARDIS. He sat up on the jump-seat, and glanced down at her. She was a bit clumsy, he'd noticed, along with other things.

During his weeklong "visit", he had learned more about the FutureDoctor. Such as: she was a neat-freak (apparently that was a complete reversal from her last regeneration), saw the glass of life not only as half-empty but also as full of poison, routinely spent a half-hour after breakfast jump-roping or hop-scotching, had no psychic connection with the TARDIS (which explained somethings and mystified him too), she did all her calculations on the TARDIS console (instead of instantly knowing the answer like he did) and while she tried to hide it, masking with grandiose statements and an enormous ego, she wanted his approval. He supposed it was like a little child, wanting Daddy to be proud.

Suddenly, in the FutureDoctor's face, he saw Jenny and had to look away. "Chanting helps, does it?" He managed to grin at her.

"Sorry, so sorry, Doctor Ten. I didn't even realize…" She pried apart the rope around her ankles. Had she been jump-roping and hopscotching at the same time? Was that even possible? Somehow, he didn't doubt she would give something crazy like that a try.

"It's all right. Time Lords don't need-"

"Certainly, my fine friend." She sprung from the floor and draped her jump rope on a nearby column of coral. She started walking away but went back to fold it up more properly. "I made some toast."

"Marmalade?"

"No." She loped around the box-table, plucking up the plate and offering it to him. "But I put some banana on it."

If you had told the Doctor, a week ago, when he'd been standing alone in the rain, staring at Donna's house, that he would be having breakfast, with banana, with another Gallifreyan… he would have thought you were joshing. Of course, you had to balance all that goodness with all the strange timey-wimey stuff about this unnatural future. He tugged on his ear and pulled his brown coat off his lap. Must be she'd put that there after he'd drifted off.

"So…" He swiped a piece of toast, chewed a huge hunk and swallowed, finding he was all energized from a night's sleep. "Let's go someplace… how about Ancient Japan! Ninjas, Samarai, the purest tea, walls made of paper! Can you imagine..?"

"But," The FutureDoctor followed him as he circled the TARDIS pulling levers, tweaking nobs and checking screens. She held the plate up, patiently watching as he snatched up toast and kept talking. When there was finally a break in his speech for another gobble, she continued, "While some tea sounds lovely, we are undoubtedly going to run into an alien menace doing something… horrifically menacing… and be busy all day with that. I had something… I have something I wanted to show you today."

"All right then. You pick the destination." She _had_ made him toast. He'd let her have her way. Tomorrow, they could visit Japan.

"No, Doctor Ten!" She laughed arrogantly, pushing the plate to his chest. "It's here on the TARDIS. You might want to grab your screwdriver."

"Not another battered relic of the past, again?" He began theorizing, "K-9… or perhaps…"

"Replica. Not relic." She stashed a canister of Pringles in her jacket pocket. It was her habit before she went anywhere else in the TARDIS. The FutureDoctor still had an irrational fear that the space/timeship was trying to kill her, and would lock her in somewhere to starve to death. While he doubted the TARDIS would really harm her, there was no dissuading his redheaded friend. Although, he did wonder what one can of Pringles could accomplish.

"Aw, you didn't answer the question on purpose. Getting to be more and more like me everyday… now about this thing. Do you really need to be so mysterious about it?"

"Certainly. That's why you're sticking about, isn't it?" She opened the door, checking the floor with the toe of her sneakers. Assuring that it wasn't an illusion, she inched into the hall. "Here, hold my hand, Doctor Ten."

"I'm not…" He sighed. Okay. He'd hold his own hand. Her hand was small, about Rose's size, but it was a straight-forward, strong grip. No nonsense. No flirtation. Which was a strange thing to fear, but he feared it. So many young women fancied him…

"Just in case the smartest, bravest space-ship wants to revert back to old management, my fine fellow."

"Now, F, the TARDIS is not "out to get you.""

"Certainly she is." She pulled him forward, past all the rooms and corridors, as if she knew where she was going and wanted to get there before the TARDIS started moving things around. Darting from doorway to doorway, she checked for… whatever it was she wanted to show him. "She let those Dastrons aboard after they'd just bloody shot me."

"The TARDIS would never…"

The FutureDoctor grabbed him by the shoulders of his suit, strong hands gripping the fabric. She smacked her upper chest with her left fist. "Bang."

Her fist dropped to her thigh. "Bang."

Her shirt rumpled as she hit directly on her chest. "Bang."

Her jaw was tight and she let go of him. "It certainly wasn't cute or funny after that. Don't, just don't, lecture me on what this bloody rocket-ruffian will or won't do. All bets are off."

"Why's that?" He took her hand again, rubbing the back of his head with his spare hand. Whatever was going on between his blue box and well, himself, it was more complicated and more dangerous than he'd thought. "What's the matter with her?"

He'd tried to get to the end of it by connecting psychically with the older TARDIS but there was a good deal of reluctance on the ship's part to "talk" about it. There was resentment, frustration aimed at the new "mistress" but there was also a depression that hung about the ship and made its thought processes often irrational. It wasn't a technical thing, fixed with gears and screwdrivers, it was an emotional problem. He doubted though, that there was a psychiatrist that spoke TARDIS.

"She lost someone too and I'm not good enough." The last part was said softly. "Onward, Doctor Ten?"

He followed as she led the way, after a moment, she slipped her hand back in his, dragging him as she moved from doorway to doorway, checking in each for…

"Here we are, my dear Doctor!" She plunged into a cathedral-sized room.

The room still had the look, the skin, of his old TARDIS. Everything was clean, white and silvery, and in the center was an enormous machine, hulking and mysterious under a stark white tarp. It reminded him vaguely of an old human newspaper press and something else. Something he just couldn't recall.

"Take you long to make that?" He wandered over, hands in his pockets. Not quite ready to admit that he did not know what the machine did.

"Lifetimes." She was dragging a curved staircase into place so she could reach the top of the machine. The FutureDoctor catapulted herself up the stairs, stretching to skip a step in between each leap. Taking hold of a corner of the tarp, she smirked down at him. "I'll bet you didn't think one could be built."

"Oh yes. But we are clever…" He paused. He could just ask her. But he was the Doctor and he had his pride. Besides, it was more fun when you didn't understand something important until the very last second. Shifting on his toes, he peeked under the tarp. "Enormous power converters."

"Certainly. In human terms, The TARDIS uses AC power and this needs DC." The FutureDoctor tugged off the tarp in one sharp motion and it collapsed onto the floor with a plasticy snap.

The Doctor stepped back, for one shining moment, his hearts beat a little faster and his eyes roved about the machine. Each detail, each component, pushed memories to the forefront and the glistening gray-green steel was enigmatic no more. "What?"

"I know it's a little rough still but when you don't actually have the original schematics and the parts were all lost in the Time War…" She walked down the curling staircase, to meet him on the floor. She looked up at it, with a frighteningly maternal pride. "My fine fellow, do you remember how we used to hate these things? And now it just might save us all."

"You're building a loom…"


	6. Chapter 6

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Six: Destiny Must Fancy You

* * *

He stepped back, staring wide-eyed at the loom.

"Doctor Ten?" She pivoted to frown at him, one hand looped on the lanyard around her neck. "Doctor?"

"You can't just build a loom! Can't, just can't. You know those crazy scientist you run into who have master plans for the good of mankind or alienkind–depending on the species and location–it always ends in some sort of planet-shattering, murderous disaster with monsters or a plague…Welll… the point is, F, you can't build a loom! Our people are gone. They don't deserve this sort of sick-"

"Wait up!" The FutureDoctor laughed, a short snobbish little snort, "You missed that whole bit about 'lifetimes', didn't you, my dear dunce."

"No." His eyes got even bigger, "Yeah… No. Yeah? No! I don't, F, I'd never…"

She tugged a roll of parchment from a cubbyhole in a workbench near the loom. Crossing to him, she offered it over her arm like a waiter offering menus at some posh establishment. She still radiated affection, its feel and sound, the only calming thing in his head.

He popped his specs on, unrolled the thin paper, noted the clean blue lines and cluttered tech-babble in the corners and his hearts flopped about in his chest like dying goldfish. It was his handwriting, every swirling line and spaceless sentence as unmistakably this incarnation's as the mole on his back. "You probably just created a paradox… showing me this before I wrote all this down…"

"Listen, Doctor Ten, I'm not much for arguing about time and continuity and all that timey-wimey stuff – I'd much rather have you take a look inside the engine and give me a critique. I certainly followed all your notes…"

"I can't. I mean, this is extraordinary, it's a sophisticated marvel of Time Lord ingenuity, it's beautiful… but the thing is, that… it's a loom. A loom. What do you intend to do with it, Eh? Fire it up, crank out a few thousand cob-job Gallifreyans and set them loose on an unsuspecting galaxy? A new Gallifreyan Empire?" He gestured wildly at the machine, wandering the floor, all the energy and passion he used to convince someone not to destroy a planet or a people, was evident in his speech. "Can't you see? Can't you see it? This is a scheme… something the Master would come up with and it's terrifying."

"I get that you're scared, Doctor Ten. But I'm not the Master. I'm not some insane egomaniac or a dictator. I'm the Doctor."

"So am I and I am asking you to destroy it!"

"After you made me swear that I'd complete our work? I think not." She collected the schematics from the floor where he'd dropped them and inserted them back into the cubbyhole. The FutureDoctor leaned back on the workbench, crossing her sneakered feet and staring at him. "What is this about? Jenny? Your childhood? The War?"

He reached up to pull at his hair, tugging the spikes higher as he tried to think of a good argument. He didn't want to talk about why the loom terrified him. He just wanted it gone. He didn't like being the last of the Time Lords but he would never rebuild Gallifrey…except of course, when at some point in the future, he apparently decided to try… The Doctor frowned at the schematics in the cubbyhole.

He bundled all of his fears, all of his doubts and things he couldn't explain, couldn't understand himself and reached for the FutureDoctor's hand.

She flinched, but a few seconds later, she put a hand over his hearts and smiled up at him with wet eyes. "You can't keep going on like this Doctor, running from adventure to adventure, saving things, destroying things, all alone… Its time to grow-up, mate." She rubbed a small circular pattern on his chest. "The universe needs Time Lords. We're going to die and there will be no one to save the universe anymore. The Doctor will just be one of those mythic heroes and that will be our legacy… did good for a bit but then there was no one to stop the darkness."

"You can't just order up a batch of heroes."

"What is wrong with you? You save every stupid little human, give every murdering hack a second chance, but when the Doctor stands before you and wants your help to bring back your own people… all you want to do is shut me down!"

"We're not gods!"

"No. But we could be parents."

He sucked in air. Her words burned in his mind like acid. He had been a father once, and the hole left by the death of his family was so large he sometimes felt that his skinny body was consumed by it. His wife, his son, his granddaughter, his daughter… "Never! I have loved and I have lost too many times. Getting your heart broken – smashed repeatedly – is too high a price for any legacy. The universe can burn after I'm gone."

The FutureDoctor shrugged. "So what, my fine fellow? You going to sabotage it the moment I turn my back?"

"Bit extreme, don't you think? I'm sure I could disable it…"

"You want to get slapped?" She arched an eyebrow at him. "Besides blowing up my TARDIS, there's nothing you can do to it that I can't fix." She tapped her temple, reminding him of shared memories and intellect.

"Doctor," He moaned, bending to lean on his knees, "If you're going to do this…well, this crazy impossible thing, you'd best at least have me check your construction. I am quite familiar—too familiar, actually—with "doomsday machines" and we don't need any sort of mangled twisted creature being born from this thing…"

"Brilliant!" She grinned triumphantly and reached down a hand to help him to his feet. As soon as he stood, she dragged him to the control box and opened the lid. "I particularly want your opinion on the gene re-sequencers. Since I don't have a million Gallifreyan DNA samples to extrapolate from, this should add some genetic diversity."

"Oh." He couldn't help but smiling. Even the vilest machine, properly constructed, made his hearts beat a little faster and his lips pull up at the corners. Most companions didn't understand the glee he found in admiring the guts and craftsmanship of a great doomsday machine but he loved a challenge. He bent his head deeper into the loom, and addressed the gears. "You are beautiful. Funny, isn't it? You've got my signatures all over you but there are some incredible innovations- F, this could actually work!"

"That was the idea." She leaned on his shoulder, pointing out the gene re-squencers and speaking a fluid, if humanized, stream of information. Unlike him, she had mastered the art of explaining quickly in clear terms and the Doctor couldn't help but feel a little better about this future regeneration. Perhaps she couldn't do figures in her head but she was a brilliant mechanic. "Spotted the major drawback yet?"

"Hmm?" He tugged off his specs, dropping them into his breast pocket and gazing up at the FutureDoctor.

Somehow, she'd gotten a long black streak of grease on her forehead and into her hairline, and she was vigorously rubbing at it with a purple handkerchief. She caught his look and quirked a smile, dropping to the floor to lay on her belly and stare into the loom. Drawing herself forward with her elbows, she tapped a screen and a diagram of the loom flared into view. "A genuine Gallifreyan loom takes two Loom-mates to operate. The samples are taken from the living and instantaneously the loom is programmed for their offspring… but since there is only one of us and someone needs to operate the loom… well…"

"You need to craft a storage device for the samples and hold the pattern until the re-squencers have a chance to create the child." He rubbed at the nape of his neck. It was an interesting challenge but while he had ideas on the topic, he wasn't sure he wanted to help with this whole thing. It was one thing to make sure something wasn't dangerous, it was quite another to get it in working order. "This wasn't solved in the original plans?"

"Certainly not." She flipped to lie on her back, cropped hair splaying about her head like a madonna's halo. "There were two of us back then."

"Two?"

She rolled her eyes, looking for all of Rassilon like a know-it-all human teenager. "You and me, Doctor Ten."

"That's impossible. Well, nearly impossible, extremely unlikely. " He eyed her, trying to see if she was joking. He still hadn't grasped her sense of humor and this might be her version of a joke. "I am very clever but not enough to be in two places at the same time."

She chuckled, and then paused as if something was becoming clear and clear meant hysterical and she laughed even harder. The FutureDoctor lightly slapped his arm, rolling to her side and trying to catch her breath. Tears slipped down her freckled cheeks and finally she managed to gasp out something intelligible. "You… big space dunce."

"I'm sorry?" He straightened his back, staying in his crouched position. Between the hilarity before him and the girlish joy seeping into his mind, he wanted to laugh right along with her but his pride wouldn't let him. Instead he fixed his eyes on her and poked her arm, "So you're not me… weelll, not really… what – who are you then?"

"I'm certainly the Doctor," she sat up quickly, wiping her face with quick swipes of her purple nails, "if you count having most of your memories, great big doses of your personality, and a horrifically strong addiction to jellybabies…"

"And Pringles." He added, staring down at her.

"That wasn't a major clue, my fine fellow?" And she gave him a rakish smile and a wink.

She was loving this, he realized, feeling spikes of gaiety in between the constant waves of affection. The Doctor scanned her, feeling his head begin to pound as the pieces jumbled about before clicking into place. "Donna?"

"How thick can you get?" She nudged his arm, looking at him with a crazy smile. It didn't bother her that he had mistaken her true identity, it just amused her. "This is a future regeneration of Donna's. I wouldn't say I'm still Donna, exactly, certainly, she died hundreds of years ago… I'm just little warbled bits of the temp from Chiswick and little warped bits of you."

"I can't, just can't, tell you, what an outrageous relief that is, Donna." He relaxed, shifting to sit beside her on the floor. He laughed now. "I'm all for getting ginger but the rest of it..."

"Doctor Ten, did you really think you'd just wake up one morning and be a woman?" The idea shocked her much so that the press of her mind against his lessened considerably. "That why you've been looking at me so horrified? You poor fellow."

The Doctor normally able to talk more in a second than Jo'amn soldiers did in a lifetime, found it hard to know what to say. The ache of that night, the chilling loneliness that seeped in and lingered…losing a companion was always hard. Losing Donna had been worse somehow. And yet, here she was… The Doctor/Donna.

"Donna, that night…I thought it was the end of you and me."

"Mmm," She squeezed his arm. "It might be best I don't give you details. Spoilers, as River used to say."

"This whole week has been one spoiler after another. Come on, I like secrets, Donna."

"Not Donna." She let her arm drop to her side and she tucked her legs up against her chest. "I'm the Doctor. Or as close as it gets."

"Explains the loom," he switched topics, "You—Donna—always wanted children."

"Loom was your idea, Doctor Ten. But your right, I wanted to be a Mum for as long as I can remember and this is my last shot." She toyed with the edge of her sleeve. "I've already experienced my Breakdown."

The Breakdown came after the first couple of regenerations, a cessation of the desire to be a parent and fertility began to plummet. Unlike humans, who experienced all the rebellion and emotions of youth before settling down into a nice house in a nice neighborhood and started a nice family, Gallifreyans, especially the loomed, started out a bit staid and responsible and began families early. After enough regenerations to be sure the children had been properly brought up, the Breakdown took over and they began experiencing the insanity of what humans would consider "puberty". It was the reason why the Doctor began life as a miserable gentleman and had gotten more carefree and youthful as the regenerations progressed.

It was also why he'd been so recently attracted to younger companions. He related to them now.

"Weelll… so what number is this? You're at regeneration three at least..."

"My dear Doctor, one should never ask a lady her age." She laid her head back on the loom, staring into space. "I'm very old, Doctor Ten, older than I should be."

"Your memories… my memories, must be a bit confusing up there."

"One certainly gets used to it." She shrugged, retying a shoelace. "But I haven't burned up yet, although, like you saw, my regenerations are always bloody complicated."

"Always ginger?" He patted the top of her head, in the way one would stroke a kitten and she inched just out of reach and rolled her eyes again.

"Mostly. Never blond."

"Never?"

"I always fancied blond hair." She admitted, leaning her chin on the top of her knees and toying with her shoelace. He could see Donna in her now, where before he'd just seen little tiny bits of him and the weirdness of her current form. The way she had no fear of him, no awe, the way she pushed and pulled him and never let him finish a sentence. Although, this Donna was more considerate of his feelings, she had yet to mention his weight or to categorize him as a Martian. He supposed if he got her riled enough, it would all come out though.

"So… you and I built the loom? And then something happened to me and you just kept at it. One thing, Donna-"

"Doctor."

"-While you've been plugging this into that, it doesn't seem like you've really thought all of this out, yeah? You going to buy a planet and name it New Gallifrey, Eh? Knowing you it will probably be someplace warm… but you could just never replace the burnt skies and the… weelll…" He cleared his throat, bounding to his feet, feeling the immediate comforting flood of warmth and comfort from the FutureDoctor. He couldn't look at her, knowing she was sensing all that he wouldn't express and hating it and liking it all at the same time. She understood. As well as anyone in the universe could. "Give all the old Time Lord's enemies a new colony to target?"

"Doctor Ten, we are in a blue box that is bigger on the inside and has doors that not even Alexander the Great could get into and believe me, he's tried." She was grinning wildly now. "So you tell me, space man, where's the safest place to start a family?"

"Turn my TARDIS into a nursery ship?"

"You won't be around for it, so it's not going to cramp your style."

He stopped, staring down at her. "Oh F, don't make me go back. I've just found you, my companion, my Donna. The Doctor/Donna remember? That day, the day you found me again, you asked me if I wanted to be on my own… and I still don't."

Begging for traveling together in the TARDIS, the Doctor/Donna. It seemed surreal, as if he was in Donna's shoes, with everything to lose and the new Donna was in his, the Time Lord who had to make tough decisions. Like most times, where the pain overwhelmed him and he didn't want it to show, he kept talking. Hoping if he was eloquent enough… it would change the future.

"Oh sure, I can always take on another companion, but you and me are different. We're the last Time Lords. Why shouldn't we –"

"You don't think I miss you, Doctor Ten?" Her smile wavered and she grabbed her ankles to pull her legs closer to her. The FutureDoctor swallowed, "I'll spend the rest of my life in the TARDIS, traveling, like I always wanted and you'll do the same. Just not the same TARDIS. You've got a future and it's not with this me."

"I'll meet you again, in this regeneration." He dropped down to her height, kneeling before her. "How soon?"

"Spoilers." She said wearily, and pulled him into a hug. She did hug like Donna, all rough and tight, but he didn't mind at all. He felt the fluttering ticklish feel of teary eyelashes on his neck. "You're going to be magnificent, my fine friend. So many exciting things, impossible things, challenges, adventures, and you won't be alone for them all."

"We've still got some time, F." He whispered into her hair, feeling the cold rush of grief through her for the first time and pushing it back with a brave front of affection. "I'm so proud of you, Donna Noble. Went straight from being the most important woman in all of creation to the most important Time Lady. Look at you, all you've done, there is no one, I'd rather have be the Doctor."

She tilted her head back, blinking back tears and grinned that girlish little smirk. "There wasn't anybody else you know. For some reason, I always end up being more special than I feel."

"Destiny must fancy you."

"Oh Doctor Ten," She straightened his tie for him. "Don't feel sorry for me. We had the best of times. The very best. You showed me all those wonderful things and everything, every sorrow, every lonely moment, has been worth it."

"Takes two to operate?" He suddenly couldn't bear to leave her alone. She was his faithful companion and he didn't care about the perils of the loom, or the potential of abuse, or the chance that it might end tragically. She was going to get her Gallifreyan baby. The Doctor pulled her to her feet and took her hand. "Just like old times, yeah?"

"What?"

He towed her up the staircase, positioned her in front of the gene-sampler and tossed his sonic-screwdriver out of his pocket and into the air. Deftly catching it, he tucked it between his teeth and opened up a panel, pulled the screwdriver from his mouth and shone the blue tip of the screwdriver at the exposed circuitry. "Oh lovely. Everything you need is here. I'm brilliant! Molto Bene! Like you said, two Loom-Mates, you and me like I always intended —"

"Wait up, my fine fellow! It was never like _that_!"

He glanced up, blinking. Then he felt his ears redden as he realized what he'd just said. "Mates?" His voice sounded a bit squeaky, "Just _a_ mate…not literally, although, sort of… via the loom, _my_ mate …"

"So that whole intended bit…" She released a breath, "good. Good."

"No!" He rubbed the back of his neck. Vigorously. "Weelll, what I mean, is that when I drew up those plans—whenever that happens in the future, might be this afternoon for all I know—I intended for two to be needed to operate the loom. You and me. That's all I meant. A purely scientific, rational, logical…"

"…conclusion based on the facts and not on any human concepts of romance." She finished, fluidly relaying his thought faster than he could get it out of his own head. It was utterly bizarre.

"You sure about this, Doctor Ten?" She asked.

"I'm not going to be around to see the little buggers, am I? Can't break my heart if I can't see them." He popped open another panel and his lean fingers danced along the buttons and the gears. "Besides, the chances of them being healthy are greatly increased with two parents instead of one. F, can you boost the storage capacity?"

She was already on it, lugging a large attachment into place and connecting it. Somehow, she'd gotten more grease on her arms, but she didn't stop to clean it off (unlike her normal habit), instead keeping steady pace with him as they made room to hold their genetic samples. "I can't believe this."

"Me neither. But the universe is full of surprising impossible things. I like it that way!" He flashed the sonic-screwdriver against the circuits and shouted, "Allons-y!"

The Loom gleamed with light, green and gold and scarlet, the whirring of its engines filled the boring room with life. The FutureDoctor burst into laughter and punched him in the arm. "You did it, my dear doctor! I bloody love you!"

"Oi, none of that." He raised an eyebrow and grabbed her hand. "Ready?"

"Oh yes."

They placed their hands, side-by-side on the raised crystalline square and the Loom went to work, shuddering slightly as the samples were turned into data and stored. The Doctor had never used a loom before, and the pricking tingling sensation wasn't pleasant, it actually sort of tickled.

The FutureDoctor winced. "Feels like the creepy-crawlies."

"What?"

"It's a human thing."

And then it was over, the Loom stored their samples, streamed the data into the re-squencers and flashed the composite DNA of the child onto the screen. He didn't want to look, didn't want to know; but he was horrible at keeping his nose out of things, so he flung his specs on and stared at the sequence. "Look at this! Hah! A girl. And she'll be ginger. Can't get better than that, can you? As soon as I'm off, you push the on button and… by Rassilon, F, you might actually pull this off!"

"Oi, and I thought you had all sorts of confidence in me, Doctor Ten?" She pulled her hand from the square and squeezed his. "Thank you."

His hearts beat a little slower, all the energy and excitement fading into an empty hollowness. "It's fine. Not Daddy material really. Weeellll, like I said after Jenny, that part of me is all…"

She put her arms around his back and hugged him. "I'm fine too."

And they were both not fine. So much gained. So much lost. And they mourned together, this time, not in the free-flowing emotions that mingled in their psychic bond, but in the mellifluous words and thoughts that could never be said out loud.

_I will be the best Mum. I will protect and cherish and train and…_

The Doctor tried to reassure her_. Our daughter'll be brilliant. She'll be perfect. You'll be incredible. I am sorry, so sorry, that she'll never know me. Oh, F, tell her. Tell her how I would have loved her._


	7. Chapter 7

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Seven: Legacy in Black and White

* * *

He sat up on the jump-seat, careful to keep his rubber-soled converses from making a sound, and slowly rose. The Doctor looked into Bessie, and as expected, the FutureDoctor was curled around her pillow in the backseat, her hands tucked beneath her chin. Just under the edge of the blanket, the Doctor could see her striped pink and purple pajamas. Her eyes were shut and she looked so young and untroubled.

He slipped from the control room, and then, crept along the darkened hall. Donning his specs as soon as he pushed into the room, he watched the TARDIS bring up the lights for him. "That's a good girl." He praised the spaceship beneath his breath and he could feel her purring. Who needed a pet when you had a TARDIS?

He climbed the staircase, reached the platform and folded back the tarp. "Hello love," he knelt by the panel, staring at the genetic pattern on the screen. He checked, as he had for the past three nights, that the pattern had not disintegrated at all and that when his child would be loomed, she'd be properly healthy. And he let out a sigh of relief that hissed around his teeth.

He'd lied to Donna—The FutureDoctor—ever since Jenny, he'd been remembering what it felt like to be a father. Images and feelings flashed through him: holding his son, teaching him to walk, showing him how to use his natural telepathy, watching him graduate, marry… Most of his companions thought that when he talked about losing his family, he was referring to the Time War. They had been gone so much longer than that.

There was a plague, striking only loomed-Gallifreyans and their descendants, racking their bodies with unimaginable pain. One could stand on the roof of one's home, and watch the sky and hear the screams all night and all day. The waves of fear, panic, pain and grief from all those minds put even the lousiest telepath on edge. He'd lived, naturally, because while all may die around the Doctor… he kept living on and on.

He looked down at his clenched fists and his lips quirked to the side. It had been his fault, the curse of his loom "parents" who ever they had been, and that curse had stolen his son from him. Susan, his infant granddaughter, though only a fourth loomed Gallifreyan, had been at risk and with the Council quarantining the planet, trapping everyone, he'd had no choice. He'd smuggled her out, stolen the TARDIS and left the planet of death behind.

And his wife.

Sisren had gotten caught during their escape, and he could never risk going back, not with Susan being so vulnerable to the plague. By the time, it was over, and Susan was no longer traveling with him, Ren had died in an accident. He'd never asked the particulars. It had hurt too much.

He shook off the memories, climbed back down the stairs and pulled the sheaf of paper from the workbench. The TARDIS had provided him with a chair so he could work in comfort. "Good spinny-one, all wheely." He commented, looking for his pen and staring at what he'd written last night. Right. Losing Rose. His pen scrawled out his story, all of his days, dark and bright, all of his adventures, good and terrible, everything he couldn't bear to tell anyone, couldn't bear to think about. His legacy in black and white. He'd written pages and pages yesterday and the day before, and he kept going until his hand cramped and then he took a break to crack his knuckles and think about what was to come next.

That child might never meet her father but she would know him. And he'd tell her of all his mistakes, all of his wisdom, and hope that somehow, it would matter. Make a difference.

The Doctor leaned back in the chair; hands folded on his chest and stared up at the ceiling. He wondered about Rose, if she was happy with his human-double. If they were married. If the Human Doctor loved her as much as he did. He wanted Rose to be happy… but it still made his hearts ache that she was lost to him.

He turned back to the letter, filling out the years after Rose with stories about him and Martha and the Master's return and how it had felt to be the Last Time Lord again. He was not the sentimental type, always a man of action and purpose, but The FutureDoctor had told him he needed to grow-up and he would… for a little while. For his daughter.

On and on, the words appeared on the paper. He told about Donna, her granddad, the day Pompeii burned, the Oodsong, his beautiful brilliant shining Jenny, the Doctor/Donna, and about finding the loom, seeing her pattern for the first time… wondering what her smile would look like, if she'd be brave or clever, if she'd learn to play the spoons or the recorder, if she'd be a clown or a lady…

_It doesn't matter what you are though, what you look like, my child. You don't have to be anything special, because you are already so very, very special to me. Be magnificent. All of my love to the future, your brilliant wonderful future. _

_Dad_

Arms slipped around his shoulder, and the warmth of the FutureDoctor's mind filled up his head. How empty it would be when he left her. No song, no belonging, and no connection with anyone… well, you could count his bond with the TARDIS… but it wasn't exactly the same, was it?

"Wake you up, did I? Sorry. I did try to be rather sneaky." He turned, the poofiness of his hair scraping against her chin. He had not wanted her to know, intending on finishing the letter and leaving it for her to find and give to his daughter… and any other children the loom might produce. It felt shameful to insist that he didn't care, didn't care one teeny bit, and then get caught writing an enormous loveletter.

"Certainly." She'd wound herself into his mind, with an expertise he'd never had. Even in her sleep, his thoughts brushed against hers. "All those words and feelings. They're beautiful, Doctor Ten. I didn't know you could write like that."

"Nor me. But I can do anything, you know. Especially this regeneration."

"Hope she doesn't get your ego." The FutureDoctor laughed lightly and let go of him. "Tea?"

"Oi, what do you say to Japan? We've been in this musty old-" The TARDIS floor tilted and she groaned in displeasure, "clever, marvelous blue box for too long. Onward, eh, Donna?"

"Onward." She paused, rolling her eyes, "Please stop calling me Donna. Donna's-"

"Dead, yeah, right, but she's not and she's you and I'm the Doctor, so…"

"I'm not being your companion, my silly space man."

"Oh. Course not. You can be the Doctor/Donna, huh? What do you think of that?"

She finally stopped rolling her eyes to fix him with an exasperated look and wandered off. He watched her little blue slippers flap against the floor and then stop by the doorway. The FutureDoctor smiled, a bit hesitantly, "Wait up… Escort me to the control room please."

"Didn't bring any Pringles with you?"

"No pockets." She patted the sides of her pajamas to prove the point.

"It would be my pleasure, Doctor." He crossed the room, took her arm and the lights faded to black around the Loom as they left.


	8. Chapter 8

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Eight: I Can Save the World With A Kite

* * *

"This is more like it, F?" He sniffed the air appreciatively, "Warm and all jungley and look they have little shops! I like little shops! Not that I do much shopping, mind you, but still they make everything so much more cozy…"

"Horrific smell," The FutureDoctor buried her nose in her sleeve. She'd changed from her ever-so-fetching pajamas to a pair of black slacks, a plain red silky-looking blouse and found her favorite cap in black to hide her short red hair. "A small fishing town…"

"Early 1600s, lovely." He supplied the rest, knowing that she probably already knew all of this but he couldn't help it. He did so love to introduce people to new cultures. "They've just started realizing there is a big world out there. Hah! Look a kite store!"

They stood side by side, admiring the square, hexagonal shapes and bright colors. Using the psychic paper to convince the kite-maker, he was the Emperor's official inspector of all-things-that-fly, the Doctor procured one and stashed it in his coat.

"That's not right, my thievish Time Lord" She looked at him disapprovingly, pausing to hopscotch over some rubbish on the ground. "He certainly never did anything to you…"

"Ah. But who's to say that in the future he won't do something horrible? He is human and humans are always on the edge of doing something horrible. Besides, he's got plenty more and I think it might come in handy, when I'm doing something rather important, like saving the world." He grabbed her elbow to pull her out of the path of a muttering old woman. "I believe I promised you tea!"

"Going to steal that too, my dear Doctor?" She pulled her arm back and then sensing his growing frustration, she shrugged the whole thing off. He could feel her deciding that it wasn't worth ruining their time together to give him a lecture on morality. "Five minutes."

"What?"

"Five minutes have gone by and nothing has happened. Which means, right about now, something horrific will happen and our holiday will turn into another day at the office." She paused, glancing back down the street and then up it in one smooth motions. "Bet you a whole canister of Pringles that it's going to be an alien invasion plot."

"I don't fancy Pringles. And, you know, not every time we go somewhere, something bad happens. Just… weelll… most of the time."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"What? Remember when we went to…" He tried in vain to think of a trip he'd taken with Donna that didn't end with them being captured, running for their lives or terrified. There was that one… nope, slime creatures in the mudbath, that had been interesting… but oh yes! That trip to…

"Tell me, Doctor Ten," She looped her arm around him, her face which was normally smiling, suddenly stern and tense. "How many Samarai carry laser-guns?"

"What?"

She pointed at a group near a house. The men were talking rambunctiously about something, katanas tucked in their belts next to sleek metallic weapons. In seconds, the Doctors had butted into the circle of warriors and flashed two sets of psychic paper.

"Hello, my fine fellows." The FutureDoctor addressed cheerily.

"Good morning, it is a fine morning, isn't it? Suns out, birds singing and fancy futuristic laser-pistols… by the by I'm the weapons inspector, Pokemon, and …"

"So am I."

"Father and daughter," an intimidating man nodded to himself and glanced at the FutureDoctor.

"Wait up," The FutureDoctor managed between clenched teeth, "we're brother and sister, don't we look alike?"

"Anyway…" The Doctor couldn't imagine why that had bothered her. Perhaps having just fathered her future daughter… though, being seen as brother and sister, didn't make it any better. "I can't help but noticing you have some strange weapons and I wondered if I might examine…?"

"You break it and…" He breathed through his nostrils in away that reminded the Doctor of a Kimoki Dragon.

The Doctor noted that he should feel threatened. But he didn't, so he accepted the weapon and stared it. "Oh you are beautiful. Look at this… Pokemon… it's like nothing I've ever seen before. Sure, the principles are classic early laser-beams, powerful enough to fry a small chicken… hmmm, fried chicken… but the make… Hah! A brand. Greyskin Smithery."

"I know this weapon."

The Doctor looked down at her. Her freckled stood out like little black stars in a white sky, and there was something vacant in her gray-green eyes. He could hear her whimpering in his mind, a soft sad little sound that mingled with the memory of sound of her own screams. This gun in his hand had been the one that had killed her. Or one just like it.

He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder but she was already stepping away.

"Where did you get that thing?" Each word bit into the air with the force of a firecracker. She turned her suddenly fierce eyes on the Samarai. And the mental bond she shared with the Doctor writhed with the rage and wrath of a Time Lord… of the Doctor.

Apparently, she didn't like guns anymore than he did.

"From the English." The Samarai glanced down at the FutureDoctor, and for a long moment, the Doctor couldn't tell if the man was appalled or fascinated by her. "They have a shop down there," he jabbed a thumb at a lane behind him, "Selling them cheap."

"Horrific." She reached for a scrawny young Samarai, grabbing him by the belt, ripping out the laser pistol and slinging it to the ground.

The young Samarai started forward, all looking silent and serious and scary. Not that the Doctor was scared. And neither was his old companion, her mind was still burning with cold fury.

"Betraying your whole code of honor, your own Emperor… because of a sale? You are nothing more than common ruffians!"

"Call yourselves Samarai?" The Doctor added, "Hah!"

Two handedly, she reached for the remainder of the weapons, tossing them in a heap on the road. She flipped her sonic-screwdriver out from under her cap, and in a flourish-less movement, aimed it at the laser-pistols. A crackle of sonic and green fire sprang from the pile of pistols, before turning into the standard red and yellow. After the flames had vanished into a sizzle of smoke, she reached down, and carefully fingered the warm, melted metallic lump that had been created. She tossed it at the first Samarai, arching an eyebrow. "My fine fellow, let's consider this, money lost, lives saved, shall we?"

"You won't tell the Emperor?" The First Samarai's face was blank of emotion.

The Doctors looked at each other. The Doctor turned back to the man, and smiled cheerfully. "Weelll… I think we can let you off with a warning."

"Onward to the little shop of horrors?" She didn't wait for him, running down the street, one hand stuffing her screwdriver into her cap and then cramming the cap into position on her head. With a flash of blue and purple, she had disappeared into a doorway.

"Keep out of trouble now," he waved his fingers at the Samarai and rushed away. His converses skidded to a stop outside the Greyskin Smithery. It was a gray building, both glass windows plastered with signs declaring good deals and exciting opportunities inside. Enter me, it screamed. And he wondered, idly, if any that went in for the "sale" came out heartbroken… or heart-eaten, well, if that was the case, they wouldn't come out at all, would they? That was an ominously thrilling thought. Brought a bit of adrenaline and mystery into his aged Time Lord body and he did so love both. He grinned, and pushed back the heavy wooden door.

She was nowhere to be seen and for a moment, he looked about wildly, scanning the huge shelves full of all manner of historically accurate vile blades, knives, rifles. He finally saw her black cap behind a glass counter stacked with an assortment of 31st century concussion grenades, sleek wand-style laser-screwdrivers and the familiar laser-pistols.

"Can you imagine the damage this will cause to the timeline?" He bent over the case, lowering his head to hover inches from the finger-smudged glass countertop. "Look! At these prices, they are practically giving these things away…"

"They're not fakes. They're not substandard. For being Dastron tech, they are all quite brilliant. In a deadly horrific mysterious way." She was waving her screwdriver over them in swift archs, pausing every few minutes to check the readings. "Wait up…"

"What?"

She flung a laser-screwdriver in the air and he caught it easily. A second later, the object in question had two Doctors bent over with it, washing it in the blue light of their twin screwdrivers.

"It's thicker, more like the width of a cigar than a screwdriver. You can get these things anywhere in the galaxy, if you're in the proper time, but this one has been…"

"Modified. They've added something, bulking it up to hide whatever…" Her breath was catching, as he'd noticed it tended to do when she was excited or terrified. Her slim fingers danced along the edge of the Greyskin screwdriver and peeled back the shiny casing. She swore in English. Her eyes, tinted blue from their screwdrivers' light, flickered with recognition. "Horrific, Doctor Ten! Every time this weapon is used on flesh, a signal is transmitted here, telling the Dastron that lunch is served. And if/when this weapon is not used against someone by a certain time, it "malfunctions" frying the owner."

"Killing as many people secretly as possible."

"And then they run about, harvesting their hearts."

"Yes." A voice answered from behind him and the Doctor turned to see the cool composure of the shop's owner. While his appearance matched the historical fashions of the day, the slip of gold on his vest that bore the name Greyskin announced his lack of knowledge about the era. Nametags. Really clever. "And with Greyskin branching out into the burial business, we can get fresh tasties without anyone blinking their nasty human eyeballs."

"Why earth?" The FutureDoctor catapulted herself over the case, hurling the laser-screwdriver at the man's head.

The Dastron, in human clothing and features, flinched, his shoulders arching up around his ears as it flew past. She'd missed. He smiled and his eyes crinkled up, making the thin pale skin pasted onto his gray hide tear a bit at the corners. "Because it's the planet you swore to defend, Doctor."

The FutureDoctor stepped forward, back rigid and rage flowing freely inside her head and twirling its way through her connection into the Doctor's mind. He had to shut it down, unable to keep his calm with her mind screaming in his.

"I should have bloody blown you up!"

And that was terrifying. Because in that one statement, was everything the Doctor had known to be truth, but he'd hoped... Whatever the source, human nature or the Time War, it had infected not only the Human Doctor but the Doctor/Donna as well. That streak of ruthlessness that had destroyed all the Daleks. That grim, bitter determination he'd seen with the Dastron's when he'd first met F. The very thing he feared becoming, the very thing he hated about himself, the part of him he was always trying to push back, push down, obliterate and hide… the part of the vengeful soldier.

"We spent generations building and building and mining and mining that rock we crashed on so that we would have the funds to return for the only known haunting place of the monster with two beating hearts. How we have drooled over the thought of you. The one and only delicacy that is the Doctor."

"You want a piece of her?" The Doctor laughed. "I've always wanted to say that!"

And he let all his fears flicker out of his head. There was no time to discuss it with her at the moment, he'd watch, wait, and step in to save the Dastrons if need be. He feared for them. The Doctor was the Destroyer of Worlds.

She shot him a nasty look, and moved toward the Dastron until she was inches from his face. "This is your only warning."

"We don't need your "empathy", Doctor." The Dastron said smugly, a piece of human-like skin folding back and draping over one eye. It wasn't many men that could take a silly flop of makeupy skin and make it look like a gruesome eyepatch but to the Dastron's credit, he pulled it off brilliantly.

"My fine fellow," She hissed through her teeth, "all you have is my pity… for what is to come."

The Doctor heard soft hungering breathing behind him. More Eat-Your-Heart-Outs were coming through the backway, sneaking in like the little murdering devils they were. "Donn…Doctor!"

"When I say…"

"Just run!"

In true Donna-fashion, she slapped the Dastron in the face, sent a splatter of pale plasticized skin onto the wall and shoved the alien out of her path. Whirling on her toes, she smirked at the Doctor before racing out of the little shop.

He kept up with her, propelling himself faster until he grabbed for her hand. His fingers interlaced with hers instantly, and he couldn't help but comment, "Is it always like this with you?"

"Run your feet, not your mouth." She snapped, looking more troubled than she had back in the shop. "All of earth history is at stake, besides the danger around everyone with those weapons!"

"Another day at the office, F." He was smiling now, loving the running, loving the adventure, the pounding of his hearts, the rushing of adrenaline, the tingle of fear in his spine. However, he could feel only the starkest determination in the woman that held his hand. She might be the Doctor, she might be the savior of worlds but she didn't love it like he did. To her it was all: a soldier's mission, a hero's dirty work.

Sad really.

Their legs churned up and down as they sped through the town, snaking their way through a crowd of monks, leaping over spilled fish. She was faster then he was, which he had to attribute to either her extra-practice at it or the youth and agility of her current incarnation. Donna had never been this speedy.

He turned his head back, craning to hear the calls of the laser-pistol armed "Englishmen" that raced far behind. They could outrun them for a good while yet, relying on the Doctor's two hearts and knack of running but eventually, they'd get to a spot where they couldn't duck around corners and the Dastrons would have a clear shot.

"Thieves!" The Dastrons called to clear out the bystanders in their path. "Thieves!"

They ran past storefronts, turned a corner and faced what appeared to be an inn or a laundry. Bed linens and things flapped in the ocean breeze, ghostly soldiers bobbing in line.

"Wait up," She grabbed him by the front of his coat and pushed him through several sheets until the clotheslines hid them from sight. Instead of releasing him, she put her hands on his chest, feeling the beating of his hearts through her fingertips. Her breath caught in her throat, and she swallowed so she could choke out, "Do you feel it?"

"What?"

And then, he felt something. Most of the time, one didn't pay any attention to the tug of time. He let it all fade in unnoticed until he needed to determine "fixed" or "fluid" events, but as they stood, panting, he knew. Something was going to happen. Something that was fixed and certain.

She looked up at him, her fear vibrating around them until she pushed it back with her considerable mental strength. The FutureDoctor grabbed his face, pulling it toward her with such speed and Donna-like-ness that he was sure he was going to get snogged. Instead, she smiled a little, eyes bright. "You're my best mate, Doctor Ten. Now, my fine fellow, Go back to the TARDIS. Go home to your own time."

"I'm the Doctor." He pulled her hands away from his face. "One, I don't run away… weellll… I don't run away out of fear! B, or no, wait, two, I don't leave my companions… weellll…unless they die or forget me… but the point stands! I'm not going anywhere."

"If you die and mess up our future," She gritted her teeth, "I'll kill you."

"Lovely! After we have our cuppa tea, I hope."

"Shut up, dear Doctor." She rolled her eyes, stepping back, and rubbing at her temples. He could hear her mind churning up all the information about the Dastrons and trying to fling it all together into a plan. "Reverse the polarity!"

"Oh, I love doing that!" He had done it nonstop for one of his regenerations, just because he liked saying it and it worked. "Hotwiring our screwdrivers together will boost the signal…"

"Rendering the weapons useless…"

"The Kite! Oh brilliant! I am so clever. Told you, F, that I could save the world with it. I can save the world with a string and a paperclip if I need to," He grinned down at her, clapping her shoulders with both hands, "and I have."

Dastron boots banged at the ground, passing by, just beyond the fragile shielding of the curtains. He listened with his ears, conferred with the FutureDoctor with his mind, and with his body, stood as still as a stone-angel. His fingers, clinging to the FutureDoctor's shirt, could feel her perspiration and slight heaving as she drew in quiet gulps of air.

When the area fell back to the rhythmic sounds of ocean and small-town life, she edged away. The FutureDoctor pulled back the corner of the sheet. Her head darting side to side as she looked for Dastrons. "All clear. There's a building ahead with several stories, we can fly it from there. The height will give the signal a maximum dispersion range."

"Aw, I love it when you talk technical." He grinned boyishly at her.

They ran again, hand in hand, flying toward the building and both of them could feel the tug of time against them. That mental knowledge that made their actions feel both essential and useless, pulling out free-will and substituting it with the heaviness of destiny. The Doctors climbed the stairs. The FutureDoctor bobbed ahead as she skipped steps. Throwing back the doors to the highest floor, they stood on a wide balcony overlooking the sea and the town.

The FutureDoctor yanked off her cap. She tossed her screwdriver to him. "I'll do the kite. My Dad and I used to fly kites all the time…"

Seconds later, he'd attached the screwdrivers to the kite with a bit of string and tossed the kite into the air. The air was breezy, being near the sea. With a fluttering snap, the kite lifted into the sky. He let the string out farther and farther, watching the blue-flash softly against the kite fabric. "One minute until it activates."

"Wait up. They know we're in here." She leaned far over the edge, putting all her weight on her belly, and lifting her shoes from the balcony floor and squinted at the ground. He thought about grabbing her but she pulled back, pointing to the pale-skinned "Englishmen" that began streaming toward the building. "We need a place to hide, my fine fellow."

He glanced around, seeing a gargantuan stone statue of twisted sea-serpent or dragon. To him it looked closest to the Loch Ness but since it was of Japanese origin… but the point was, it was strong, huge and surrounded by baby statues. Not exactly Fort Knox, but adequate.

He dragged the kite to the side, pausing to navigate the string around a pillar, and took refuge behind Nessie. The kite would give their position away almost instantly but unless he wanted to lose both of their sonics forever, he would hold on to the kite string.

"Running, hiding," she whispered, dropping beside him and using her cap to mop at her forehead, "I can't believe you think this is fun."

"Hide and seek, tag, humans play these games too. Why do you think I like human companions?"

"Cause they look like Time Lords but less boring?"

"Clever girl."

There was a bang as the Dastrons tried to open the door. The FutureDoctor had fused the metal doors together before passing off her screwdriver to be adapted. It would hold for a bit. A very small bit.

She inched toward him as laser fire rippled against the door. Through the swirls of the statue, they could see the greenish flashes through the cracks of the door. Hear curses from beyond it. The calls and jeers and threats of the Dastrons in their smooth, hungering voices.

"Twenty more seconds," She squeezed his shoulder.

The kite flew higher and higher and he willed it on. They could do this; get the signal out, shut down the weapons and then figure out someway to stop the Dastrons themselves. He could feel the pulsing emotions of the FutureDoctor mingling with his own. Somehow, being with someone was always more frightening than facing danger alone… you had someone to lose.

He wanted to say she was lovely, she was clever, she was brilliant, all those little things her mother had never told her. All those little things Donna wanted to hear over and over because she could never believe them. Oh, his hearts pounded with the bittersweet affection, and he couldn't find his tongue.

The doors burst open, and the Dastrons scattered in like gray cockroaches.

"Fifteen." The FutureDoctor said.

"Come out, Doctor." Greyskin, if that was his real name (should be since he had it on a golden nametag) strode in, peeling back the scarf that had hidden the bruised gray of his face beneath the gaps of the flaking scraps of skin. His eager little eyes took in the balcony in rapid glances until it settled on them. "Come out, tasty, and we'll let your mate live."

"We need to run!" The Doctor muttered to her.

"Can't run forever." She stood. Hands up. Eyes calm. "Ten."

"Yes?" He looked up.

"Nine."

"How my ancestors will envy this meal, your last, my best." Greyskin's tone was mocking and slick and slithery.

"Eight."

"Hmm," Greyskin looked up the slender string to the bluelit kite. "What are you up to, tasty?"

"Seven."

Greyskin motioned to one of his men. He took a laser-pistol. Aimed it at the FutureDoctor's head. "Doesn't matter. You're going to die. Nice clean shot, leaving the hearts undamaged."

"Six."

"Five." The Doctor counted along, hearts pounding, wanting to reach out to her and pull her to safety, to leap in front of her. He began rising from his hiding place. If he could just get closer…

"Four."

He gripped the kite string in his right hand and reached for her with his left. Acting slowly, deliberately, trying not to do anything to anger the Dastrons prematurely.

"Three…" The FutureDoctor's countdown stopped.

Greyskin swung his pistol to the Doctor, eyes narrowing and bunching up the clinging streaks of white flesh. He smiled.

There was the hiss of laser fire. One hit.

"Bang." Her voice was quiet.

Her legs buckled. She rolled to her back, legs and arms splaying as she fell. Before she hit the ground, the Doctors' psychic connection was severed with a terrible swiftness that left him alone and hollow.

She'd stepped in front of the gun.

"F!" He tried to pull her back, to will her mind back into unity with his, the last of the Time Lord, the Doctor Donna, but it was mad vain scrambling. There was nothing to hold onto. No more thought. No more love. No more life. Death had come.

"Headshot." Greyskin leered, eyes lingering on her ribcage.

The Doctor knelt by her body. Blood pooled about her head, another red halo.

The sky flashed vibrant intense blue and the whine of the twin screwdrivers echoed over the sea. The Doctor stood, legs shaking. Not with fear. Although, that would be preferable to what he was feeling. "Your weapons are useless now."

"I think the odds are still in our favor, human."

"Oh, well… there's where you've made a grave error." He leveled his eyes at them, "I'm the Doctor."

"No. You're not." Greyskin sounded certain but his body language told another story.

"Oh yes. The definite article." He stepped forward.

Whether chance or destiny, there was a huge blast of wind and the kite fluttered past. He reached out and snagged it, almost as if this had been planned and pried his screwdriver off. With a breath, he twisted a few knobs, adapting the screwdriver to his current need. The Doctor aimed it at the man's chest, the tip flaring with a harsh cold azure light. "I don't carry a gun, but that doesn't mean I can't make one."

A properly tuned sonic pulse could be lethal… He tried to forget that, tried to think of the slender metal machine in his hand as only a tool. Just like he tried to think of himself as only an explorer. But in the darkest moments, he was a soldier. This was his weapon.

"We do not fear death." Greyskin didn't even blink. "Fire, Doctor."

A Dastron broke rank, creeping towards the FutureDoctor's body, saliva flowing off his lips. The Doctor warned him away, he kept coming and the sonic blast dispatched him.

The hungry Dastron flopped to the side, his carcass spasming and lashless eyelids stretched taunt around lifeless red eyes.

The proper "Englishmen" went beserk, flying on their fallen comrade and tearing at his body. So they ate their own kind now. And they'd seemed so dignified in their white ruffled collars.

He blocked out the screaming and the terrible ripping, grinding, crunching sounds and gathered her body into his arms. She was light and still slightly warm and he carefully straddled the balcony's rail, aiming his trainers for the nearby tiles roof. It wasn't so much the drop that was dangerous, it was the gap between the balcony ledge and the roof. He'd have to jump out as well as down.

Might kill him. Especially trying to do it with the FutureDoctor's body.

But he was not leaving her behind to be eaten. She deserved better than that.

The Doctor slung her over a shoulder, cupped her to him with one arm and leapt out. Before he knew it, they were tumbling down an incline of tiles that slipped and clattered to the ground. Kicking himself back up the roof, he hauled her body from the edge, thrashing intensely to keep them both from falling. He pulled her into place, standing awkwardly to pin her in place with his knee.

"I'll get you home." He lifted his screwdriver to the heavens, hoping that the future TARDIS would understand the old "save me" signal. He rarely used it, mostly because it never worked, especially if the TARDIS was being persnickety. "Please, please…"

The Blue Box crashed into the sky from a distance away, the edges were blurred blue as it twirled like a toy top, before scraping the balcony and causing the Dastrons to scream. It appeared like a faithful pet before him. The Doctor lifted her body up again, taking a large step to reach the doorway and stumbling up the ramp into the control room.

He gently laid the FutureDoctor on the jump seat, and returned to the doorway, staring at the shocked monstrous faces of his new foes. The TARDIS hovered above them, the war-chariot of the Destroyer of Worlds, tilted down as an oppressive king. "This is your final warning: You'd better not be here when I get back."


	9. Chapter 9

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Nine: Stillborn Dreams

* * *

Death is a funny thing. It comes with dozens, blimey, hundreds of rituals depending on what corner of the cosmos you hang your umbrella. Sometimes bodies, that physical shell of a life, were just dropped out of airlocks or reprocessed into useful items like soap or carpet; or stored in fleshbanks for interface nodes in nightmarish libraries. Sometimes, they were elaborately dressed and given seats at the family table… which made one never accept a Lithikian dinner invitation. Even on good old earth, each culture had different ideas. On Gallifrey, burning was the method of choice but she wasn't all Gallifreyan, was she?

He nudged her body with his shoe. "Oi, Donna, you sure you don't want to regenerate?"

As expected, she lay on the grated floor of the control room and gave no response. It was all sort of morbid and unfunny and that made him want to laugh. Out of all the places in the universe, fate had decreed he had to be here for her death. Why? Because he always had to see, had to watch, had to hear, had to remember, had to have that bit of glorious hope before it all came crashing down in flames.

"You had such plans, weelll, big crazy save the universe before tea with little Time Lords plans. But still it was a goal. Come on, Donna," he nudged a little harder, "Shiny gold lights. Crazy personality disorders. New teeth. New hair. Blond! Donna, you might be blond this time, whatcha think, Donna?"

He rubbed at the lower half of his face. So that was two hours now with not a single change. He should have given up at the half-an-hour mark, but he could never accept that there was nothing more to be done. Well, nothing more to be done than to figure out what would be most appropriate for her body.

"Stillborn dreams." He said thoughtfully, "Our daughter, your life with her, just stillborn dreams. Not like I can take her with me, just push the button and grow myself a family. Because what would happen?" He wound his finger in the air, envisioning the Loom console before him, "it would begin putting our genes together again, resquencing, resequencing until another child was all planned and I can't face all of that. Couldn't just leave that one and take his sister… No, can't, just can't. They'll all have to stay frozen possibilities, unused potential, never to breathe the bracing air of Sixzaz Four or see the glories of the Glitterstar Cascades."

He reached for her arms, pulled her back onto the padded cart that Martha had used, it seemed like years ago, not days. How brief that regeneration, all hopscotch and purple and Pringles, had been. He pushed her down the hall, up the ramp into his own TARDIS and left her there in the dark.

The Doctor went back the control room, heaved all of her photo albums into his arms and carted them to the Loom room. On the work bench, he made a tidy stack of them, pressed the crinkled paper of his letter to the top, and dropped the FutureDoctor's lanyard with her TARDIS key on the whole business. Climbing the stairs, one last time, he whispered a goodbye to his daughter, staring a final time at the serpentine beauty of her genetic structure and pressed a kiss to his fingertips and then his fingers to the screen. "I'm sorry, so sorry."

Almost done.

Back at the heart of the TARDIS, he tried to say farewell to his dear old blue box but she was unresponsive and cold to the touch and the mind. The lights were dimming slowly but surely and she knew, somewhere, deep and hidden, like he did; that she was just a museum, a tomb, a witness to the final things.

"I'm going to let you drift, exploring on and on, watch out for the Loom, if you can. No need that it be destroyed." He felt something slick on his cheeks and pressed on, "As for you, you beautiful invention, a quick tweak of the chameleon circuit will make you look like a bit of comet. Between that and your shields, you shouldn't be disturbed. Hah!" He fiddled with the controls, patting the bits and turning the bolts, "Allons-y!"

The TARDIS responded by the green column swirling a darkening emerald and then black. Just enough power to keep the shields up and then lie still, playing dead… weelll, maybe more than just playing.

"Bye." He said to the emptiness, into the silence, and went home to the bright green-gold wonder that was his own TARDIS. There was still a body in there, but the TARDIS thrummed into his mind, the first psychic sound in such a long while and there was life here.

Hours later, he was crawling through racks of clothing in the wardrobe room. He tried not to get distracted by the uniforms and apparel of the past, finally pulling out the white plastic bin he'd been searching for. The lid opened with a popping sound.

Donna Noble's wedding dress. The first thing he'd seen her in. And what he would bury her in. It seemed right somehow.

He sealed it again, balanced it on his hip, exited his ship to step into the drizzling afternoon of Chisick, England, year 2075. While a previous regeneration had always carted an umbrella with him, The Doctor didn't mind the rain. Which was probably why he kept coming back to good old Great Britain. He'd parked on the edge of the New Chisick cemetery, and he could see the Noble/Mott family plot from where he stood.

Apparently, at some point, Donna Noble vanished from intensive care and out of human knowledge. He hadn't asked a lot of questions, conscious of the trouble of crossing your own personal timeline. But while the DoctorDonna lived on, she'd left a prepaid section of earth with a half-finished tombstone close by her parents resting place. And now, it would finally be used.

The Doctor turned, strode into the funeral home nearby, handed them the dress. "I expect you'll have to take it in. She's been dieting." They didn't care about the reasons why they were burying a teenager in the place of an old woman, as long as they were paid, so he probably hadn't needed to explain the thing about the dress either. After delivering the body to be prepared for burial, the Doctor sighed, sinking into a chair in the waiting room. He leaned forward, with his face in his hands.

He'd never actually done all of this before. He lost companions, friends, like people lost car keys. That didn't mean that their deaths had been meaningless or insignificant, it just meant… it happened. But this time, when it happened, he couldn't just run away. She'd taught him something. It wasn't anything profound or worthy to be put on magnets and postcards and sold in little shops, but it was something that hurt him and helped him. She'd asked him to grow up, and this was him, facing that final inevitability and saying goodbye. So that when he ran again, he could look back and there would be no shame.

She'd been lovely, important, and she'd died to save him. It hadn't been a very dazzling end, and in fact, no one would know about it but him. But Davros had been wrong, at least about the DoctorDonna, she had been more than a soldier. She'd been both diplomat and warrior, savior and destroyer, human and Timelord, Donna and the Doctor. And there was no shame.

At least here, at least now, he didn't feel the urge to run until the pain lessened, until his memories faded, until something new caught his eye. Growing up hurt. Growing up helped.

There was no shame in this.

He said his goodbye on the tip of his screwdriver. Hunched over the tombstone, he carefully carved the current date with a sonic pulse, pausing to blow the chips of granite from the fresh trenches of the numbers. Rubbing off a patch of moss before her name, he moved the screwdriver in graceful arcs, etching two letters. Shifting back, he tucked the end of his tongue on the back of his upper front teeth, and scanned his work.

Dr. Donna Noble.

He could have waxed poetic or sentimental and maybe that would have suited Rose or Martha, but Donna had been straight-forward, unimpressed by fancy words, and distrustful of praise. For her epitaph, this felt right.

The Doctor stood. A strong wind was shredding the clouds into cottony tufts, and revealing warm blues and golds that filled the sky with brilliant beauty. The rain was over. That seemed right too.

Kind of like destiny.

Maybe, he was growing up. Learning, realizing, that sometimes, destiny, "always heading for this", "fixed points in time" happened and he didn't have to play God, didn't have to fight against the inevitable all the time, because now, at this moment… at this predetermined time, things were alright. Not Timelord code alright but really, really alright. His thought were going into dangerous territory now, flickering into the realm of the spiritual, life after death, a person behind fate, future, past and present…

"Nah," He shrugged, flipped his sonic screwdriver into the air and then slipped it back into the inside of his suit jacket, "The thing is, Donna Noble was always special."

It was much easier to believe that. Much easier to believe in the capabilities of a companion rather than some unseen force with greater powers than his own.

He turned, his sneakers splattering with dewy grass as he wound his way about the monuments to the dead. The Doctor fiddled with the lock and key of the TARDIS, humming some old Elvis song and he really was alright. The thought made him pause, one hand leaning on the blue door of the TARDIS.

He _was_ alright. He'd said goodbye, really saw it to the end, and there was no shame in that. He felt tired, a bit sad, but he didn't need to pine and brood over the DoctorDonna. He didn't need to spend hours planning how to get her back, torturing himself with what-ifs.

"Bye." He smiled slightly. Pushed back the door of the TARDIS and went to save Ancient Japan.


	10. Chapter 10

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Ten: Spandex is Never in Style

* * *

It always gave him the... What had F called it? Right. The creepy-crawlies. That's what it felt like, watching you, entering another TARDIS, years younger. It was a dangerous thing, crossing your own timeline, even if, as now, it was all accidental.

Weelll… he supposed he could have been a bit stricter with the TARDIS about date of their landing. But normally, the universe in all of its timey-wimey glory kept one from ruining anything accidentally. Oh, yes, 98 percent of the time—65 percent of the time—20 percent of the time, the universe protected itself from crossed timelines. Bit like keeping a moron from crossing wires. Weelll, the point was: normally, he didn't worry about these things and this wasn't his fault.

The Doctor watched from behind a stone angel, his eyes darting from the statue (just in case it wasn't actually a statue) and his younger self. When the revving sound of the TARDIS's engines filled the cemetery and the blue box faded away, he relaxed. The Doctor stepped out, ruffling his white mane, and picking his way forward to Donna's grave.

So many years since he'd stood here… and yet, no time at all, for this was the same day that he'd been here last time. If he were human, his head would be spinning – like when River tried to grasp that she'd seen him last night and it had been months for him – but he was far from human. The Doctor stooped, fingered the fresh grooves in the granite and plopped down on the wet grass beside the dirt pile.

He was so tired. And he had lost so much.

The Doctor would be sitting next to the tomb of his wife, his clever adventurous River Song, but his youngerself had callously given her body to the captain of a rescue-ship that had come to shuttle the library's survivors away. He supposed, in the 51st century, they were using something other than cemeteries and since part of River, her mind and soul were in the library computer, would visiting her shell mean anything? That made his head hurt and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

So, he was sitting next to Donna instead. He'd waited for years and years, falling in love, saving galaxies, making friends and enemies, living on and on. Always keeping an eye out for her, always ready for that moment when he'd see Donna again. And here he was…still waiting.

"Know what, Donna?" He patted the muddy earth beside him, not finding it the least bit strange that he was addressing a freshly buried coffin six feet under. Or more like five. Hah. "I could pick up anyone off the street, any passerby and offer them the stars… but… weelll… it's getting a bit time-consuming. Finally get a new companion to say Raxacoricofallapatorian and stop marveling over the "it's bigger on the inside" trick and then they're off with someone else, doing something daft and not nearly as much as fun as they could be having with me. Yep." he paused, popping the final syllable for emphasis, took a breath and kept babbling, "I never liked those old men that feed the pigeons or played chess in the park. Never moving anywhere. Never doing anything. Endless waiting. But they're tired of pushing on, tired of trying. Just tired."

The Doctor wasn't sure what he was trying to say. It would be so easy if he could transfer all of this into the FutureDoctor's mind, let her sort it out, make sense of it, like he used to. It was so long since he'd heard a Gallifreyan voice. Since he'd felt the press of someone's thoughts and emotions in the emptiness inside his mind.

"That leaves me here. Sick of being alone, sick of temporary companions and sick of waiting for you to make your grand appearance. You told me we'd be together again, that we have a future, the Doctor/Donna, I just had to wait. I've waited. Don't, just don't… know what to do anymore." He sat a while longer, trying to soak in that peace he'd found on this day decades ago. But instead of calm, he felt agitated and restless.

He didn't want just any companion. He wanted Donna back.

He kept his voice conversational, falsely cheery, and smiled down at the mound of mud, "Aw, I should have read your photo-albums. Then, at the very least, I could have something to look forward to." River and her bloody concept of spoilers. It had taken all the fun out of things.

"Bye." What else was there to say? He stood.

Walking at a brisk pace towards the TARDIS, the Doctor felt an odd buzzing start. It wasn't in his ears but in the back of his neck. The pounding thudding "sound" increased until great waves of thought washed into him like rushing water into a tiny overflowing glass that was moments from shattering. He stumbled, catching himself mere inches from face-planting on the paved sidewalk.

"Psychics." He muttered, feeling heat flush through his face and pain lance through his eyes. If his eyeballs rolled out of his head and children snatched them up for marbles—it would be alright with him—providing that the barrage of thought stopped, and he could think again. The Doctor tried to put together a coherent theory; if the psychics could knock him over in two seconds flat… then that meant…

"Oi!" Two pair of dingy sneakers appeared before him. The stranger's hairy legs and young knobby knees bent as he dropped to the Doctor's level. Garbed in a tacky looking marathon costume of shiny blue and purple spandex shorts and numbered top, he had a runner's slim body, golden curls that formed a strange fluffy poodle-like afro, and a wide mouth with plenty of large straight teeth. A sort of unattractive youth, although his ears were nice, and he appeared to be good companion material.

Sometimes, even though one wasn't looking for a companion, you just had a gut instinct about someone. He only accepted the best to travel with him, and this stranger struck him as one of them.

The pounding continued and the Doctor began to fear that he was finally hearing the Master's drums. He felt like this sound could drive him bonkers but there was something familiar about it too…

"You all right, sir?" The boy reached out to steady him, fingers lightly gripping the Doctor's shoulders. "We're doctors so we can help!"

"We're not doctors yet, Jamie." A girl's voice. Younger than the boy's in pitch, far older in tone.

"Hello," The boy ignored his friend, turning concerned brown eyes to the Doctor's face. "I'm Jamie. That's my boring sister Joanie. There's a bench not far, can you make it?"

The Doctor turned blurry eyes to the bench. It seemed farther away then his mind knew. If only the voices would stop. It had to be a massive group of telepaths, some kind of army… ? An invasion? He hoped not.

"Joanie, help me."

"If you hadn't chased after that brunette," his sister grabbed the Doctor's arm, puffing in annoyance, straight black hair splashing against her neck with every movement, "we would have still been with the others instead of getting lost… and now, we're going to be late. What if they leave without us, Jamie? It'll be entirely your fault."

"Two words. Shut. Up."

"'Come with me, pretty one'… Hah! Like you even have your own…"

"Oi, Joanie, umanhay in esencepay." Jamie reminded and settled the Doctor onto the bench and began patting his spandex short. "Blimey, no pockets. Could I borrow your stethoscope?"

Joanie, now in plain sight, was built solid and strong with small pudgy hands. She had a lovely face and large silver hoops dangled from her large ears that were trying to hide behind the curtain of black hair. Joanie's outfit was identical to her brother's except for the number.

"Jamie!"

"Right…No pockets either. How thickheaded can she get? Sending us out without any supplies."

"We're supposed to be on holiday, not helping the homeless…" The girl's voice trailed off. Joanie stuffed part of her fist in her mouth, lightly biting down, and stared at him. It was one of those half-fear, half-admiration and completed confusion stares. He got them all the time from companions.

He felt it, then, in mingled among the other psychic voices. The same emotion on the girl's pale face was in his head. She was one of them… one of…

"Joanie, I don't think he's homeless. Blimey clean looking for a hobo." Jamie tilted the Doctor's head back and peered into his eyes, checking for signs of a concussion. With Jamie's cool hands on his face, the Doctor slipped unnoticed into the boy's mind, skimming the surface of the alien's thoughts.

No malice. No evil-intent. Something about thinking of a better line to impress Kate, which he could see in Jamie's memories as brunette waitress, and what a worry-wart his older sister was and…

Jamie broke contact, stepping smartly back like he'd been slapped silly. "Oh my giddy…"

"Don't, just don't. Frankly, that catchphrase is a bit embarrassing." The Doctor sniffed. He straightened, forcing himself to adjust to the onslaught of minds by remembering what it had been like before Gallifrey was destroyed. All those thoughts pressing in. Remembering, how to block out some, ignore others, keep from drowning in the telepathic tide.

"I don't recognize you." Jamie's narrow chin tightened, "Are you a Doctor?"

"Oh yes."

Joanie knew. He could feel the curiosity and confusion rolling out of her. As for the boy, he sensed defiance and a bit of relished fear. How unlike a Time-lord to enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear… except for himself, he'd rarely seen it in others of his species.

"Have your own TARDIS then?" Jamie asked.

"Naturally, she's a bit old, mind you but—more importantly, what are so many Gallifreyans doing on Earth? Finally get sick of staring out of the big old dome? Decide to see a bit of worlds then? And oh…" He frowned, pulling hard on an earlobe as if the tugging would pull the answer into his mind, "but you're all sealed off. Like parallel universes. Like fixed points in time. Like that one jar of marmalade in the cupboard. How on earth did you get out?"

"Get out?" Jamie scoffed, kicking at a soda can. "Through the door, Doctor… didn't catch your name?"

"He doesn't have one." Joanie answered, her mouth shifting around her fist.

"Oi, the Kithriarch didn't give you one? That was blimey irresponsible of her."

"No," The Doctor shook his head, "you don't—wait, you have a female Kithriarch? What's your House?"

"Same as yours." Jamie shrugged his scrawny shoulders like a typical human teenager, rolling his eyes as if the Doctor had asked the stupidest question.

"Lungbarrow?"

"We can't say anything more, Doctor." Joanie had finally decided she couldn't swallow her hand and grabbed her brother's shirt, hauling him farther away from the bench. There was a strange reluctance, the Doctor sensed, to leave and a fear that made her want to run and never look back.

She wanted something from him, and knew she'd never get it. She wanted… the Doctor's approval.

Why? Why was he so important to her…?

She closed her mind off rapidly, eyes blinking as she focused on the task. Seconds later, something rushed through the psychic flow and one by one, the Gallifreyan minds began to close to him. Except for Jamie's, who still stood there, flabbergasted and muttering under his breath. A flash of Joanie's hand on Jamie's arm, and Jamie shielded his mind away from the Doctor like the rest.

The terrible void in his head seemed bigger than before.

"We have to go home now." Joanie said, softly, finally. "Come on, Jamie, he's fine."

"I am not thick." The boy stated, glaring at his sister.

"It was a stray thought. It only lasted a minute and you were acting pretty…"

"Stay." The Doctor was up, entreating them with his hands, bouncing on his feet with this incarnation's typical energy, "I haven't seen Gallifreyans since… weelll, never mind…"

He smiled. This smile wasn't so different from his others, wide and a bit maniacal, except he reserved it for addressing would-be tyrant and murderers. These Gallifreyans were trying to get away from him, unknown impossible things that they were, and he had questions. He wasn't accepting the "spoilers" excuse. Not anymore. He'd left too much up to fate recently and it had done him no favors.

In the same warm conversational tone he used about little shops, he switched topics, "You seem an interesting breed-"

"I don't know if this is fate or chance, I'm not trained well enough." Joanie stepped backwards, pulling her brother along. "But you're right, Doctor. We're supposed to be… sealed off."

"Gallifreyan arrogance. Gallifreyan rules. Gallifreyan "I'm-so-afraid-to-really-live-I'll-make-sure-no-one-else-does-too. Oi, I suppose something's never change, eh Jamie?" He strode to them, moving his hands in his suitcoat pockets to get his coat hem to flare out and in. He liked to keep busy. Always on the run. Always on the move. "You know what? I had a companion named Jamie once. Smart and Scottish…"

Neither of them had moved. Neither of them smiled. Neither of them seemed the least bit interested in his story or opinion on Gallifreyan policies which was a bit disappointing because he'd hadn't had a good ramble in at least a week.

"You're just going to take off in your TARDIS and that will be that. Oh…Brilliant." The Doctor mangled his favorite word with sarcasm. Clearing his throat, he stepped back on the sidewalk. "Weelll that makes things simple. Very simple. You are obviously up to no good here—I can tell, years of experience with this sort of thing—and frankly, you are dressed rather ridiculously. Take it from an old Timelord, kids, spandex is never in style."

"Blimey, do you think we'd hurt the humans?" Jamie broke their silence, glancing down at his apparel and failing to be subtle about it. He jerked his shirt-hem. "We're the good-guys, Doctor."

"It's been my experience that if you have to say it, it's only self-delusion, not fact."

The boy clapped his hands over his ears. "Shut up, Joanie. I can think for myself, thank you. I don't need you or the Kithriach in my head telling me who I can and can't talk to!"

"You're afraid of me. Good. As F believed, it'll make things a bit easier when it comes to you believing my threats, taking me seriously and of course, 'choice' time." The Doctor bounded over, grabbing Jamie by the shoulders, "All-righty now. Tell me what's going on."

Jamie's dark brown eyes, brimming with all the innocence and confidence of youth, came up to search the Doctor's face in swift earnest glances. The Doctor stared back, suddenly captivated. And there, behind the flickering of the young Gallifreyan's eyelids, buried into the eyes very design was something strange.

"Hold still for a bit?" The Doctor sifted the silt of a thousand trips to little tourist shops that were housed deep in the pockets of his overcoat, until he finally found a round red-cap like object. He snapped the cap into place on the blue tip of his sonic screwdriver, and aimed the now lavender colored tip at Jamie's eyes. "Molto Bene! Now we'll just take a little look and…"

The Doctor pulled back. He looked at the brother and sister in silence.

"Doctor," Joanie flipped her ebony hair over her shoulder and reached out her plump hand to him. Her mind had relaxed, a feeling of calm seeping through her mind and into his. "Come and see."

"I'm a coward."

"Then you're the bravest coward there is!" Jamie said, still rubbing his eyes from the screwdriver's light.

"If you are going to come, it has to be now. I'm not gonna be left behind…We're leaving soon. "

The edges of his mouth crept into a small smile. "Wouldn't miss this for the end of the world. Trust me, once you've seen one planet been eaten by the sun, you've seen it all. Or, most of it all. All of it. No. Actually, you've seen nothing but a planet being eaten by the sun-"

Jamie ran, skinny legs moving rapidly as he rose up a knoll and vanished. His sister ran slower, each footstep sure before she took another. The Doctor gave a good try of beating them both, but placed second after Jamie. He blamed it on too many sweets, broken hearts and white-hair.

"They're coming." Joanie pointed.

Climbing the hill in a sort of cheery silence, came a large group of runners with numbers painted on the chest and backs of their short-sleeved primary colored shirts. Permed red hair bobbed with each graceful movement near the front, long pale-blond braids flapped from the center, brown hair, long, short and spiked clustered in a grouping towards the back while white hair interspersed at regular intervals. There were many variations of cut and style but all of the colors and textures looked familiar and under the waves of hair, the runners had long faces, short comical faces, aged soured faces, dreamy-romantic faces, stubborn tough faces, arrogant faces, proper genteel faces and the Doctor could have spent decades describing them all. Each runner was unique, but they were all the same too.

They were all part of the Doctor. They all carried the potential to regenerate, two hearts, an obvious love of running, nods to his current or previous regenerations which sometimes clashed in the same person or blended in strangely wonderful ways. They were all part of Donna. They all carried human-like retinal patterns, the spirit of adventure, and a few, splashes of freckles or curls of auburn, ginger or red. And sometimes, he couldn't look at them because his vision was all blurred.

"Are you crying, Doctor?" Jamie, in no more than his first or second regeneration, was emanating with something akin to loneliness.

"Nope." He turned slightly, popping his spectacles from his pocket and onto his face, "Just need these, Jamie."

"Doctor," Joanie slipped her hand into his, "We are okay. You don't have to worry about us."

"Who takes care of you? So many. So very many. I'm not part of a dead race anymore… by the way," He frowned, "Why are you all dressed like Marathon runners?"

"Easiest way to blend in." Jamie shrugged. "We get to run and tour the Earth at the same time. This group's just coming from Big Ben."

They stood a moment, watching the crush of Gallifreyans, fly past.

Jamie cleared his throat. "Doctor…Can I?"

The Doctor looked at Jamie. The boy was sliding up to his other side, fingers flexing nervously.

The Doctor grasped the boy's scrawny hand and squeezed it. Jamie squeezed back.

"I want to stay. I want to see them. All of them." The Doctor felt like Donna, begging for the impossible. Or like Rose, forever parted from the one she loved.

Joanie smiled, and a golden weight transferred from her fingertips to his and rushed up into his mind with all the beauty of sunshine and heaviness of an anchor. It was her love for the Daddy she'd never known, would never know, who had missed the day she was loomed, would miss the day she graduated to Doctor, would miss the day she chose her first companion or the day she found a mate or began a family, would miss the last day of her final regeneration.

"Goodbye, Doctor." She let go. Leaving only a fragrant echo of her personality in his mind.

"Wait." He wanted to respond and reached clumsily for her hand again.

"We know, Doctor." Jamie shrugged, as if that expressed everything, "We have your letter."

Joanie glanced down the hill at the others who had centered themselves around a blue antique police box, all of them trying not to draw attention to themselves or stare too obviously at the Doctor. "But not enough time. Just let us do this."

"Do what?"

"Shut up, Jamie. You should listen to the psy-chatter more often if don't want to go around asking stupid questions."

The Doctor let the sounds of their bickering fade out as a fresh telepathic flood of information, personality, memories and emotions came. He was a light on a hill, filled with the comforting and horrifying rush of a hundred quick loveletters and dozens of bitter lonely messages. He was their father, and when it was over, he knew them all by name. He knew the dreams of the young, the regrets of the old.

As for him, he was filled with his own. Regret that this was the only time, he'd ever have contact with his offspring. Dreaming of each face the loom, which he had yet to build, would create.

And he could say it. Those three little words he had denied so many lovers and wives and friends. "I love you."


	11. Chapter 11

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Eleven: An Asteroid Abduction

* * *

The Doctor rattled the key in the lock, anxious to climb aboard and get to work. Lovely bits of data and equations floated around in his big Time Lord brain. He frowned, twisting his wrist vigorously as he tried to get the door to open.

"Oi!" He braced his shoulder against the rain-dampened door, "What's all the stubbornness for?"

The Doctor didn't dare kick at the TARDIS—he doubted she'd ever forgive him—so he backed away, pulling his hair in a thoughtful way. The only other time the TARDIS had refused to open was on the Dalek Crucible… and this was a might disturbing.

Something slapped the back of his leg and clung to him. Jumping around, he reached down to pin his attacker. It was a newspaper so drenched that the merged pages had an onion-like transparency. Grinning, he lifted it from the grass and checked the date. Today's paper. Or Earth's current day.

"They really do bring the news to you!"

Smiling still, he glanced around. Right. No companion. He supposed it was just as well, it hadn't been a very clever comment anyway. He always came up with his best material when there was someone to impress.

He imagined the mocking that'd be layered on him—if he had a companion—about not being able to get into his own TARDIS. The Doctor absent-mindedly tucked the paper into his jacket pocket and once more stepped forward. He inserted the key, whispered a smattering of kind words to his spaceship and the door opened.

Inside, he draped his overcoat on a bend of a coral column and embraced the gentle humming of the TARDIS inside his head. It was a poor substitute, as usual, but she was a lovely ship and a loyal friend and it was all he had. For now.

"So much work to do." The Doctor said, grinning. He pulled a long scroll from a hatch, groped around for his ink-stained feather-pen and plain glass inkpot. Sprawling on the grated floor of the control room, he unfurled the parchment and uncorked the blue ink. He whistled some sort of tune, and stared down at the blank intimidating expanse of paper.

How did one go about writing down blueprints for a loom?

The easy cheating way. The Doctor congratulated himself on his cleverness and began sketching out the loom, from his memory of the physical loom and from the blueprints the FutureDoctor had shown to him. Watching the pen swirl smoothly across the parchment, he could forget his pain. River was dead and he was alone but out there, in some strange mysterious future, his children lived on.

He paused, dropping the pen into the inkwell. Maybe that's why he'd spent the rest of his regenerations obsessing over the loom, forcing F to promise to keep constructing it. Because he'd known that it would work. Somehow. Someway. It would work.

Scrawling the data that flowed from his memory, he lay on the floor for hours. When he got up, he lifted his shirt to find the grating had left ugly red marks on his belly. "I do all these nice things for you," He pouted, "I keep you clean—most of the time—in good health, feed and even put you on hilltops during sunsets and look at what you do for me…" He rubbed at the marks and then sank into his jumpseat.

As he sat there, trying to decide whether to land on Kokopelial or Junip 6 for tea and biscuits or to start collecting supplies for the loom's construction; he felt time snap into a certain empathic resonance. It was always uncomfortable, this inevitable feeling that something large and fixed was coming. An important event.

The TARDIS shuddered, something like a shiver rattling the console and causing the coral columns to sway. She felt it too. The Doctor tried to calm her, all the while inching toward the sludge-hammer. The ship rumbled and he was thrown down the ramp and rolled right against the door.

Scolding her, he brushed himself off and reached to rehang his coat. Janice Joplin had given him that coat and he didn't like it being dropped in the dirt every time his TARDIS had a fit. He straightened it, and out fell the paper.

The words on its thin wet pages were hard to make out, but it was opened to the obituary pages and each picture of the deceased was clear enough. The Doctor wanted to look away, hating to be reminded that everything in the universe ended, but something made him pick it up. There was a sharp crackling as he began folding it again and then he saw it.

Donna Noble was dead.

The Doctor scanned the article, horrified at the lack of impressiveness in her life and the lack of spirit in the older Donna's eyes. Tripping on a brick would have been preferable to dying alone and unimportant.

But Donna couldn't just die like _that_. She had to regenerate, become the FutureDoctor, meet him, travel with him, help him finish the loom. He skimmed to the obituary's end.

_Strangely, the body is believed to have been taken by a young woman and a white-haired gentleman impersonating a doctor. The cops are investigating. _

Dropping the newspaper on the floor, he stared at the green column in the center of the console. The Doctor blindly twisted a knob, flipped some switches and spun a small wheel. "All up to you, my clever craft. Take me right in the middle… of whatever it is that is supposed to be happening…" He shrugged, a bit vague on directions, trusting fate and the TARDIS to sort out the particulars, "Alon-sy."

It was quite possible he couldn't save Donna, it was also possible he could. But he knew, in his hearts, he could not let her die alone anymore than Rose could've let her father.

He stepped out of the doors, and face-first into a mop handle. Spitting dirty cotton ropes from his mouth, the Doctor batted the mops and brooms out of his path and fumbled for the light-switch. Ah. As he had predicted. A closet. All big events seemed to start from there. Or from storage rooms.

Truth of the universe.

Stumbling from the closet, he kicked the broom, vacuum and mop back inside and slammed the door shut. It reminded him of trying to get out of his wardrobe without choking on scarves or being impaled by umbrellas.

Pulling out his brainy specs—he need them more and more as this body aged—the Doctor recognized the smell and décor. The haunt of corpses, plagues, scientist, nuns and wheelchairs: a hospital. His trainers squeaked on the white linoleum as he wandered, peering into the darkened rooms. Human patients. Late 21st century technology. And judging from the faint stars in the windows, somewhere around London.

Which is also a truth of the universe, if something major is going to happen, it was likely to happen in London.

And yet for all of that… he judged, that he hadn't moved far in time from his previous destination in the cemetery. Probably same month, or perhaps even the same day.

He could feel the rippling effects of this point in time. Whatever major event that was to come, it would happen here, he could taste the epicenter… it tasted a bit like green tea and the briny tang of destiny. It was a weird Time Lord thing.

Rifling through a nurse station's computer, he finally located Donna's room. The Doctor stole a labcoat to hide "I'm-a-visitor-after-hours" and strode through the halls until he reached the right door.

She was awake, her ancient frame lit in the silver from the night sky, and he felt like Peter Pan, knocking on Wendy's window but unable to face the truth. She'd grown old and he had missed it.

He'd had very few old companions, they didn't tend to appreciate all the running that was a job requirement, but age before beauty, character before cleverness and brilliance before politeness. He'd missed her, his rude slap-happy Donna.

There were only two problems: One, she would be dead in a few minutes. B, no, no, Two, she didn't remember him.

Well, first things should come first. He'd worry about her mind after he'd figured a way to heal her body. He reached for the medical tablet to determine her condition. Old age. The one thing that could not be fixed with a sonic-screwdriver or a pill.

The Doctor stood still, all the nervous energy draining out of him and the tablet dropped to the floor. He crouched down to find it again. Finally emerging from the search victorious, he lifted his head.

Her dark green eyes still had that sharp dangerous look and now, they were fixated on him.

He licked his dry lips, feeling flustered and almost dropping the tablet again. What did one say to your best friend that didn't remember you… when they were on their deathbed? He felt his tongue start working without much thought behind it. "Didn't intend on waking you, Donna. I've just come to ah, check out this chart here and sit with you a bit if you don't mind? How's the food here, because I'm thinking of a cuppa tea. Would you like one?"

And he grinned, seeing the irritation on her wrinkled face flicker into a fullblown rage. He'd missed her.

* * *

The Kithriarch stood in her office, the false sunlight falling across her face. Below her, she saw her people walking and talking in comfortable clusters, a group of children were sitting on the long steps that led to the habitat sector and watching a Doctor, wearing the Academy's black robes, juggle. She'd watched similar sights for almost a thousand years, watched the TARDIS swell with young students and empty after graduation, watched Time Lords marry humans or other genetically compatible species, presided over every birth, natural or loomed and she spoken the last rites for many.

She turned at the tugging on her robe. "Hello Jackson. So have you escaped again? Or merely gone for a good morning walk?"

"Morning, grammy." The toddler's blue hair was uncombed and only his pajama bottoms and one sock seemed to have survived the night. Her great-great-grandson was renowned for his penchant to wear as little as possible.

She lifted him, ignoring the weakness in her aged arms. Cuddling him close, she remembered each of her sixteen children like this, small and warm from sleep. She had been blessed, repeatedly, and today, she no longer had any regrets. Not anymore.

She'd managed on her own, with more than enough help from her siblings and the TARDIS. All she'd ever really needed from the Doctor was his love and now, she knew, she had it. In that respect, she was not so different from the younger loomed Gallifreyans.

The Kithriarch had once been…

_A soldier. _She gritted her teeth, vibrations from the twin handles of the steering column making it difficult to hold on, much less guide her shuttle away from the magnetic pull of the asteroid behind her. _I'm a soldier!_

And soldiers were brave and pigheaded and that's what she needed right now. It was good thing it had been hardwired into her genetic structure or she might have been screaming or panicking.

"Isn't everyday an asteroid decides to abduct you." She commented, managing to keep from biting her tongue as she spoke.

Clanging, scraping sounds rang through the cockpit as little bits of the hull peeled off the shuttle. The warning lights on her shuttle flashed in the dark interior, scattering gleams of red across the familiar controls. While she knew her ship perfectly well, she didn't know how to stop it from either: A. disintegrating around her, or B. plunging her into the mysterious rock to be dashed apart.

Jenny fought on when the engines began to sputter and then fail. She welded, rewired and patched when the emergency lights blinked out. She sat and screamed curses when the ship finally sank inside a dark hollow of the rock and the stars faded away.

This wasn't how the Doctor's daughter thought she'd die. Hauling herself from her chair with more anger than sense, she pulled on her full-length camouflage jacket, strapped her stungun to her slim waist, and grabbed a torchlight. The ship said there was oxygen outside the door, and while the reading seemed impossible and the damaged equipment faulty, she wasn't going to die like a coward.

She disengaged the safety locks on the door, and took what might be her last breath. Punching the open button, Jenny waited for something to happen. All was dark inside the asteroid, a thousand years of dust swirling in the faint light from her torch. The air was chilly but breathable.

"Magnificent," she breathed, feeling that familiar curiosity brimming inside.

With a bit of a girlish bounce, she landed on the smooth metallic floor and began sweeping the light over the walls. They were made of copper-colored plates covered in mysterious round things that looked something like glass portholes. The walls slowly arched up to form a dome, although the torch's feeble light didn't erase all the shadows that clung to the top like a black spider. In the center was a long crystalline tube that entered a console before vanishing into the grated floor.

As she approached, moving with the grace and wariness of a warrior, the tube began to churn with a blackened emerald light and then settled into a beautiful clear green. This ship—if that's what it was—was coming alive at her presence and she knew, deep in her hearts, that she had been abducted for a reason.

"Hello?" She smiled impishly, trying to be friendly. She'd seen living ships before, or ones with such advanced AI's that they seemed alive and it was always best to treat them respectfully. "My name's Jenny… did, did you bring me here?"

The engines of the ship, spluttered in greeting, shifting into a gentle vibrating purr. Following sharp snapping sounds, light began to flicker on, bathing the room in steady white, gold and green colors. A rush of simple and complicated emotions pounded through Jenny from a strange consciousness and she screamed.

Once, she'd felt something like this before. When she'd lain dying in her father's arms, something of his mind had brushed against hers and it had been warm and gentle. This was more alien, more insistent and had a bit of longing and ruthlessness in it. But she wasn't afraid, and when the shock wore off, she clamped her mouth shut and did her best to ignore the psychic waves.

"I don't understand." She tried to push back, to communicate her confusion and how ill-equipped she was for this but the ship only purred before retreating a bit, and to become a half-formed whisper in the back of her mind. Jenny stumbled toward the open door that led farther into the spaceship. If she distanced herself from the mysterious tube and control room, perhaps she could sever the parasitic connection.

Wandering through the dark halls, she stumbled into dozens of rooms, some with inviting beds and closets stuffed with junk, some emulating gardens, some empty and forlorn, some with settees and sofas surrounded by stacks of books, some laboratories with strange equipment. But no matter how far she explored, there was no outrunning the voice in her head. There was no help from other prisoners or occupants. Simply, because there were none.

The ship had been abandoned and that was why it had taken her. It wasn't going to let her leave. Jenny pinched her cheeks to keep from crying. The distant pounding in her mind made the base of her head ache and the conclusions she was arriving at, filled her with a sort of dread.

Normally she was confident she could manage on her own but, failing to save her ship and eject the voice from her mind, had burned her ego into ash.

Then she heard something, a cry that sounded humanoid. Jenny gripped the handle of her weapon on her belt and inched forward, torchlight shining a golden path through the dust on the floor. She knew, like she always did, that this was the correct room and silently nudged the heavy white door open.

Her light made no dent in the oppressive black. Either the room was too large for the beam to reach a wall or she was staring into deep space. Since Jenny was still breathing, she opted for the former theory. She entered, her the sound of her footsteps reverberating in the space like she was inside a cave.

There was a gasp, and a glint of pale white as something flitted out of sight.

"Come out, ghosts." She set her legs apart, pulling her weapon out in a fluid movement. "I've survived death so I believe we may have something in common."

Soft, scuffling noises and the creature crawled into the light. A mass of tangled auburn hair covered most of the young woman's nude form.

"Hello, girl." Jenny said to fill the silence.

"Hello."

The girl had an accent that Jenny wasn't able to immediately categorize but she was speaking 61st century Terran, which would greatly increase communication. Jenny hated landing on planets or ships and being forced to grunt and point. But considering the feral appearance of her new "friend", perhaps that would have worked just as well.

Shadowed under large unmanaged eyebrows, the slight slant of her eyes indicated a certain sly cleverness. She wouldn't have been considered pretty, her straight nose and wide impish mouth a bit too large, but while her features hinted at a strong, confident personality, the expression was equal parts fear and curiosity.

"I'm Jenny." Jenny kept her voice and her gun level. "I hate to sound like a plebe and state the obvious, but where are your clothes?"

Frowning, the girl chaffed at her arms and tried to become smaller. "You mayhap think I've gone apples, but I'm not quite sure I own any rrraiment." She rolled her rrs with a mild old-world Scottish accent.

"What do apples have to do with it?" The Gallifreyan eyed the young woman.

"It's just something people say."

"What people? Are their people around here?"

"I don't know. You're the first one I've seen."

"For how long? How long have you been trapped in here?"

"Trrrapped? Am I trapped? I thought this was my home. But mayhap, the antennas have been crossed and… do you suppose that's why I can't remember?"

"It figures the one person who could help explain this mystery would have amnesia." Jenny paused, "You promise not to attack me?"

"And naturally, because I'm naked and unarmed, I'm insanely dangerous?" The girl looked offended.

"Insane," Jenny smiled softly, liking the girl's spirit, "but I don't think you're dangerous."

"So I'm either the victim of abduction or some violent lunatic? I rrrather wish you'd make up your military mind."

Jenny holstered her weapon, tugged her heavy jacket from her shoulders and tossed it at the redhead. The girl slipped it on quickly, nodding in a kind of grateful way without being overt about it.

"How long have you been on this ship?" Jenny sat, crossing her legs and tried to ignore the happy animal-like chittering of the ship's voice inside her brain.

"Always." The redhead said with absolute certainty. She dropped to sit across from Jenny, draping the jacket over her knees a little more. "Or for as long back as I can remember."

"You're just a little loony, aren't you? Never mind," Jenny smiled wryly, tilting her head to the side. "Perhaps it would be best if you told me the first thing you remember."

"I was rrrather cold. Freezing. And it was quiet and dark. Then I heard the door open and you came in."

"No name? No family? Not even a cute little pet?"

The redhead sighed like an exasperated mother, "Haven't you been listening? There was nothing before you came in."

"I wonder…" Jenny stood, her quick mind formulating a theory that she didn't like in the least. She reached down, pulling the girl to her feet and stepping back towards the door.

"Where are off to?"

"Nowhere." Jenny stated. She found the door, and put her hand out to feel the room's wall. Slowly brushing the light against the walls, she advanced, following the four-square walls until she'd returned to the door. She blocked out the girl's questions—she had an irritating way of asking hundreds of them while pretending she didn't need any of the answers—and the mental hum of the ship.

"At least sixteen feet deep and wide. Nothing on the room's edges, no other doors, no transmat devices… let's search the middle."

"Mayhap I just dropped down a hole from Wonderland."

"Did you?" Jenny flashed the light under the redhead's chin.

"Wonderland isn't real. It's a place in a book."

"And how do you know that?"

"Same way I know how to walk and talk. I just do."

Jenny waved her torch in a circle, a way to express her irritation without expressing her irritation. "Could be there's a ship parked in here."

"I don't think so."

"And how do you know that?"

"Same way I don't know how to do this zipper up." The redhead held the coat closed, making annoying zipping noises as she toyed with the closure. "I just don't think I know how to pilot a ship."

"They took your ability to do useful things and gave you a fine appreciation of literature? On Messaline, you would be a very pathetic soldier."

"Excellent. I don't want to go about shooting people."

"Forget I said anything!" Jenny refrained, just barely from slapping the girl. This amnesiac was practically as helpless as a newborn and yet had the arrogance of a college professor. Muttering to herself, Jenny moved forward until she found it.

It was massive, it was mysterious, it was metal. And although, young Jenny didn't know it yet, at the base of the loom her father built, her life was going to change forever...

But forever is a very long time. And Jenny, the Kithriarch of New Gallifrey, leader of her Father's children, cradled her great-great-grandson in her arms and felt older than dust. "All things come to an end, Jackson." She whispered into his soft hair, "But the Doctor's legacy goes on."

"The Doctor and Donna?"

"Yeah." Jenny reached for her copy of the Doctor's letter, written long ago, bound in a leather cover and worn with reading. "Two most important people in the Universe… now, has anyone ever told you about how the bees vanished one day…? No? Well, Donna Noble was an average earth girl, nothing special…"


	12. Chapter 12

**Eyes Open**

Chapter Twelve: Everythings All Golden

* * *

Eyes open.

The hospital room is one of those cream and sanitary green numbers and far from posh. But for all that, the window is quite large and the nurses and doctors are nice enough to leave the blinds always up. Sometimes the fog of the city clouds the night sky, all the twinkling mysterious stars, but almost always, if she looks hard enough, she can find at least one stab of light against the black. Grandad told her that she had to always look every night up at the stars, she had to do it for him, for memory.

And he had said no more.

Thirty years since he died. And tonight, she'd join him. Along with Dad and Mum. Donna Noble, daughter of London, wouldn't be alone much longer.

Someone dropped something. There was a person in the room, fumbling with a medical tablet. A scrawny head popped up with wild white hair, "Didn't intend on waking you, Donna. I've just come to ah, check out this chart here and sit with you a bit if you don't mind? How's the food here, because I'm thinking of a cup of tea. Would you like one?"

"Oi, do you always burst in like you own the place and disturb all your patients? I may not be an educated doctor like you," She stared hard at the little nametag on his thin white labcoat but with her old eyes, she couldn't make out the name, "but I'm paying your salary and I'll get right out of this hospital bed and leave if you-"

"Now, Donna," The rebuke came from the shadows. From where he stood, she couldn't make out his face, but the voice was amused. He pulled up a chair, its wooden legs dragging across the linoleum, and sat just out of vision range. "Is that any way to treat an old friend-"

Donna straightened, squinting in the dark, bellowing out in a voice stronger than her body. "I'm not your friend!"

"Course not," The stranger said quickly, and then repeated more softly, "Course not. Uh, wellll…" He made an arrogant sniffing sound and his eyes rolled to the ceiling, "but I'm an old friend of your granddad's. And I thought we could sit for a bit."

"What's your name?" She had the terrible suspicion that one of those nun-biddies had sent him in here to spy on her. Ever since she'd bitten Sister Ruth for bruising her arm with the IV, it had been World War 4. Either that, or he was here from the accounting department, acting all lovely to her so he could be sure that she'd pay up. Donna had never been one to save money but of course it didn't matter. They wouldn't ditch her on the curb; because it would be unethical.

"John Smith."

"Gah, you've got to be bloody joking." She rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her hospital gown. "Parents couldn't think of anything else, yeah?"

"It's been a good name. Lots of memories with it." The man shifted, laying his thin arms on his knees and hunching forward into the light. She saw just a little of his face. Mostly just his outrageous hair and buggy eyes behind square glasses. He had the hugest, strangest, smile on his face. Seemed a bit forced if you asked her. "You're… comfortable here then, Donna?"

"Are you a blinking idiot? Comfortable is eating fish and chips with your family at home, not trapped in a hospital bed with batty nuns and some bored lunatic named John Smith." She didn't want him to leave. Talking to anyone – even this scrawny streak of a man – was better than sitting alone in the dark but she didn't want to be pitied. She'd done all this to herself. If only she'd made more of herself, been a better daughter and friend, she would not be here. But the whole "life-flash-before-your-eyes" thing was still coming so she didn't need to get into it now.

"Bored lunatic." He repeated from his seat. The nerdy smile vanished slowly, as if the man truly wanted to look happy but wasn't.

Perhaps for her sake, he was trying a bit. Donna had heard some of the nuns talking about how a friendly smile helped people to die happy. Blimey, since she'd learned that, she checked her vitals every time they cracked a grin. But this time, she had actually physically cringed when he'd begun smiling and was relieved it was over. For a sec.

Then he leaned back, sticking his hands in the labcoat's pockets and eying her. There was something so bloody intense about that look that Donna had to look away.

She transferred her gaze to stare at the blackness outside the window. "I had an outrageous dream just a bit back. All the stars were going out."

He sat up so quickly that the medical tablet fell off his lap with a hard clack that echoed around the room. She frowned, watching Dr. Smith kick it aside, get behind the chair and push the chair right into the small space between the window and her bed. He smirked impishly at her, leaned his arm against the arch of the hospital bed and laid his head on it, looking more like a rogue school boy than a medical professional. "You know, Donna Noble, nothing with you is ever boring. Your dream, come on, tell me about your dream."

"You really don't have nothing better to do?" She rubbed at the pain in her soft wrinkled knuckles. Donna was so tired and yet she was flattered by Dr. Smith's sudden strange attention. It had been so long since someone looked at her, truly looked at her; that someone listened, really listened; and she hated being nothing. Useless. Alone.

He paused, stretching out his reply with an ingrained pronunciation that was more for show than any hesitancy. "Weelllll… I'm here. Listening. And you'd better take advantage, Donna, because I like to talk about as much as you love to shout."

"Oi." She rolled her eyes. "See there's this magician. I can't ever quite see his face and he has got a key. One of those little silvery ones that everyone used before everything went all DNA scanners and technology. And the key goes to this tiny box."

"A box?"

"A blue box." Donna leaned her head back, settling back against the pillows and turned her face to Dr. Smith. Their heads were close now, like two kids whispering secrets. "And he gives me the key and I just know I'm supposed to lock myself in. But it's going to hurt. First off, I refused, but I just had to. It's know its bonkers, but I couldn't stop myself. My head and legs came out of the top 'n bottom of the box, like one of those "saw-people-in-half" things and that's exactly what happens. The magician takes out this saw and I can feel it cut me, right here." She slapped her midsection. "Can't breathe."

"Cutting you in half? I can't imagine where you're getting that from."

"Like I said," She got a tad louder, ignoring the interruption, "I'm thinking it's all over and then the box drops. It goes down and down and I'm bloody falling straight into hell. I'm all covered in flames but not in any real sort of pain. I know I'm all split apart and that I'm on fire," She shrugged, "but it doesn't hurt anymore. Everything's all golden and I'm a star and I fly away, just up and up and on and on forever and forever."

"Always wanted to travel then?" He was staring at something on the sheet. Tugging a bit of fuzz from the top blanket. Wherever his mind was, it wasn't on planet Earth with Donna Noble.

"Yeah. Went to Italy once."

And he was back. Spewing nonsense with the greatest blooming glee. "Really? The great waterways of Venice… the glories of art and history in Rome… no, don't tell me… Florence? Was it-"

"Pompeii."

He stopped, turning to look down at her. He had such fiery eyes for such a skinny man in a labcoat. And now that he was so close, she had the feeling he was older than he looked and younger and sort of brilliant. "So sorry."

"I was too. All the tour guides were trying to make it sound all perfectly fine." She couldn't keep from scoffing, "just like thousands died to become a historical playground for archeologists and future generations but it was just a volcanic eruption. Just a trick of nature. Oi, you know what I felt…?"

"Yeah." He slipped his hand into hers. It was such a familiar and normal-feeling thing that she didn't even realize he'd done it at first and then she didn't mind. If he wanted to hold her hand, she wasn't going to stop him. No one had held her hand for a very long time. "I know, Donna."

"I wanted to go back and change things. Save them, yeah?"

"Sometimes, we just can't. Just can't."

She looked down at her hand in his. "Do you always hold hands with the dying?"

"Not usually, no. Truth be told, normally I stay as far away from death as I can. I think… I've been running from it for a very long time."

Donna laughed, an obnoxious sound that was forced and cold, "And you're a doctor?"

He didn't smile. He pulled her hand into the air, looking at it as if it was the most important thing in the whole of creation. "You pulled me around."

"Oy, what are you talking 'bout now?"

"When we used to hold hands, you would drag me where you wanted me. No companion had ever done that before. I used to grab their hand and we'd run away. Now," he sniffed, "we did our fair share of running, Donna, but you grabbed my hand too."

"Blimy, I was right about the whole lunatic thing."

"Oh yes." He let their hands drop to the sheet but he didn't let go. "You've only got a few more minutes. Still. I'm not sorry. You had a fine life, didn't you, Donna?"

"Wasn't what I thought it'd be."

"No?" He sounded shocked, but she had the feeling he was being sarcastic.

"I thought I was going to be brilliant. I would be something one day. A mum, or a wife or something important." She laughed again, suddenly feeling very sleepy. "I used to type hundred words per minute. Think that should be on my tomb, yeah?"

She rested her head deeper on the pillow. Doctor Smith was grabbing for her other hand, moving to sit on the side of her bed. He chaffed her hands together, as if to keep them warm. "Two more minutes, Donna. Not a second sooner. Stay."

"Would someone please tell me why Doctor Smith," She tilted her head back and forth to emphasize the sing-songiness of her words, " who is all afraid of death is here… now?"

"I read your obit-I heard you didn't have…" He smiled that thin plasticized smile, and something about it felt so very weird. "…any more time."

"Time?"

"What?"

"What time is it? Supposed to look for it at nine."

He checked the watch on his scrawny wrist, his brown eyes darting from it to her. "Weelll… you got a few more minutes, Donna. Like to tell me what it is you're looking for?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Just said I'd do it and I've been doing it forever now." She pointed at the window, finding a star that was bright enough to be seen even with her blurry eyes. "Grandad said it was important and I trust him. Why you here again?"

He wiped the lower half of his face with his hand, hesitating like he couldn't decide if he wanted to run or blurt it all out. After a few minutes, Donna tightened her jaw and was about to bully him about, but he finally, simply, said; "I needed to say goodbye."

"We," She made a soft scoffing sound in her throat, "never said hello."

"Always skipped that part. You and me. Doctor Donna…."

"I think you came to my wedding. I think I saw you in a picture."

"Just the reception."

"I never got married."

"That's not so bad. Not marrying Lance," He looked like the name was distasteful, "is not so bad."

"I wanted kids. I wanted a family."

"You're lucky you didn't get them. They just break your heart. And you'll still be alone."

"Bah, I have a pretty strong heart."

He checked his watch again. And that scary, sad, smile was directed at her...again. He tried to look so happy and only looked so sad. Sadder than Donna felt. For all his talk of her having a good life, he didn't seem to believe it. "Not strong enough."

"You gonna stay all night?" She wouldn't mind if he did, but everything in her life had been like her job: temporary. And she wasn't getting her hopes up for this skinny stranger.

"Forever."

"Which is all over in a few seconds." She looked at their hands. And she wriggled her way out of his grasp. "Get something for me. In that drawer over there, would you…?"

He leaned over her, popped the drawer to the cheap dresser and pulled out a slim black jewelry case. "Hello, what's this?"

"My mysteries." She took it from him, snapped the lid open and withdrew a long silver chain. "I found it in my pocket one day. These strange little things. Look, here is my key… and this is a wedding ring. I can't imagine where it came from because it's not the one I ordered for my wedding." She slipped the smooth gold band around her finger. "And this is a gold capsule. I think it was from that Adipose company… but I don't remember ever dieting."

"Why are you showing me this?" He was looking at her sharply, face edged with panic. He was farther away from the bed now. Looking like all he wanted to do was run away.

"Because it's a mystery. And one I'll never get sorted. Bit like you, Mr. Smith."

His watch beeped. And Donna felt her limbs begin to relax. The chain and the charms fell on her chest as her hand dropped down. It felt fuzzy and strange… this dying thing. Her breathing got slower and she didn't even care.

"Donna, wait." He was back, diving for her hand. "Donna, Donna, Donna…"

Her name got slower and slower on his tongue. She wasn't sure if it was something he was doing or some extra trick of death… a slow motion moment like all those dramatic scenes on the telly. All she could hear was her heartbeat, booming in her ears. It was a bit like that sound you get when your underwater… all the world and its noise slips away and your ears pound with the sound of blood and sloshing water.

"I was going to be with you forever."

Donna didn't know who had said that. He wouldn't have said that… she knew, and there was no way she'd make a balmey statement like that. The words seemed important but it was all so far away, she was underwater, so very far below the water.

A sharp intake of breath that burned and hurt. Colors flashed before her, each image vibrant and saturated and full of life and adventure and danger and adrenaline and an outrageous amount of running. So much love and satisfaction rushed in, followed by anger and despair. Her mouth drew out a shaky sound. "Doctor."

"Donna! Donna!" Distantly, she could feel him fingering her pulse on her wrist. He didn't let go of her hand.

**

* * *

**

Eyes closed.

Her heart had stopped. For all her bluster and lip, all her stubbornness and determination, Donna Noble was only human. And all humans died… everything died. The Doctor didn't want to let go of her thin fragile hand. He'd let go of so much in his long life that it hurt to think about what was to come, the black coffin, a man in white and black standing over the hole in the earth.

He swallowed, turning his head, opening his eyes to look at the stars. "Human and their pollution and their guns and their diseases. Marking out time with things like holidays and calendars. And in the end, all of it ends right here. Hospital rooms."

He took a moment, took a breath, turned back to the bed. "Wake up, Donna. I don't know how you manage it… but you do. So why the hold up, eh?"

But there was nothing. He felt so old. All he could think about was sitting in the future dark TARDIS with the FutureDoctor's corpse and hoping in vain. Please, he found himself whispering, let me have her back. It would have been a prayer, if not for the fact that the Doctor didn't believe in God.

Reaching slowly for the chain laying on the bedspread, he unlinked the clasp. It was a bit tricky to do that onehandedly but he managed, pulling off the ring.

The Doctor slipped it on her ringfinger, smiling slightly. It still fit.

Somehow, that made him want to start babbling, "I got married, Donna. Convinced River to skip a reception, after all, weelll…all those old friends all in one spot would make us a target. She really fancied me, insisted you know... on the marriage bit… and it was brilliant. Still. Over now."

He tucked the key and the chain into his labcoat pocket. Donna wouldn't need it now and he would find a place to put it in the TARDIS. He had a wall of trinkets left behind by former companions in his bedroom closet. At one time, he'd thought to drop them off to them but they'd left them behind and they were not taking up too much room. Just as well to leave them as they were.

"I think Sisren would have understood… me marrying again. I don't know if she'd have liked my choice but she'd have understood. Never told you about Ren, did I? Always talking… never saying anything. Weelll… childhood sweethearts." He sniffed, rubbing at the lower half of his face with his free hand. "She was birthed. Not loomed like me. So we were quite an odd pair... If there hadn't been such a surplus of loomed males that year, we'd never had made it on each others lists…"

He paused, realizing he was talking to an empty body. Saying things he had never said to anyone. Talking outloud about the painful hidden things and not ashamed of it. "See us great Timelords decided a few millennia back to get rid of what you would consider natural birthing. We went high-tech. It became normal for Loom-mates to provide material for one Timelord and then ignore it as it grew. Oh, some Loom-mates would show up at the Academy once a year, check their offspring for physical characteristic that they might share, scold them about low grades, that sort of nonsense. I was loomed. Had a belly-button." He stopped again, lowering their clasped hands to the bed and leaning back in the chair. "That never happens, Donna, not to loomed Gallifreyans. In my first regeneration— I wish I had a picture to show you, you would find it funny—I was all aged and went about calling people "my boy" and holding onto my jacket… Sisren was birthed, so she was five years older than me but looked forty years younger. She used to come find me when I'd run away and we'd sit and we'd talk. And when the lists came out, who'd be appropriate Loom-mates, I had a long list of possibilities…"

The Doctor couldn't imagine why he was remembering all that now. Perhaps looking at Donna, how life ended, he wanted to remember how it had begun. "But she chose me. For her husband, actually. Our kids were not loomed… and it's lucky they weren't. Because the plague came… Aw, but Sisren, Donna, she was my first great love. Brilliant. Clever. And I have had loves, crushes and great loves… I have had women I wanted to grow old with and ones I wanted to be young for… I have had companions, friends, acquaintances… but she was all the best parts. I can't compare her to anyone else and it wouldn't be fair for the others for me to do that. Just like it wouldn't be fair to compare you to any other companion. There are no bests, no betters, just people I loved and lost."

He swallowed hard, slowly removing his hand from hers. Her hand had been loose and lifeless for a few minutes now but still everything in him wanted to cling to it. "You made me a better man, Donna Noble. I will never forget."

The Doctor smoothed back her gray and white hair and pressed a kiss to the freckled wrinkled forehead. He arranged the blankets so her shoulders were covered and he checked to be sure her eyes were closed. If she could have heard him, he would be assuring her again of how magnificent, how brilliant, how special Donna Noble had been. He would've said she had been a great mate to him and their adventures had been the best. The very best.

He put the chair back where he'd found it. Collected the forgotten medical tablet and dropped it back into the slot on the wall. Elsewhere in the hospital, he could hear the hum of equipment, the flickering sound of the lights and the creaky footsteps of the nuns. But in Donna's room, it was quiet. No bawdy laughter. No sharp insults. No cheeky comments. Just quiet.

And it was not all right.

The Doctor walked to the door, pulled it back, having the urge to run all the way to closet where he'd parked the TARDIS. Just run and hide all these feelings with a new adventure. A new discovery. There had to be another person… someone he _could_ save… out there somewhere.

A flash of gold smoke was followed by writhing tendrils of sparkling mist. He turned, nearly tripping on his own converse sneakers. Someone was sitting up in Donna's bed, bathed in the golden brightness of regeneration energy. It faded away, leaving a thin womanly profile in the starlight of the window.

The woman turned to look at him, nothing visible of discernible except the halo of her redhair. She tilted her head back and the light hit her face. She looked as if she was waking from a distant dream. "I'm going to bloody kill you."

**

* * *

**

Eyes open. Taking in the sight of her own deathbed with newly regenerated eyes and the Timelord by the door who was sinking to the floor as if all the energy had been drained from him. She hurled the covers back, young feet hitting the chilly linoleum and bounding from the bed she thought she'd never leave.

"The Doctor Donna." His eyes were distant and his face was blank. The last time Donna had seen this look, this frightening empty, look had been after the catastrophe on the Midnight tour train. "You've regenerated."

She reached down, grabbed two fistfuls of the labcoat and hauled him to his feet. "Snap out of it, Space Man. Because I want you conscious for the thrashing of your life!"

He threw off her hands, cupping his own around her face and drawing her so close to him that she could smell jelly babies on his breath. The Doctor was smiling now, that boyish enthusiastic grin but his eyes were searching.

A second later, Donna shuddered. He was connecting to her mind through his slim fingertips. The heat of his touch in her mind was intrusive, and he picked through her life briskly, like someone flipping through a photo-album before tossing it aside. Rage flooded in, deeper and more insistent. She channeled it into him through the psychic link. "Get out of my head, you dumbo!"

He backed off, bumping into the wall behind him. They were both panting now, although Donna was full of life and energy and the Doctor looked worn out. It was the oddest swap. "You hate me…?"

"Couldn't even bother to pull out the little stethoscope and take a listen to my hearts, no, no, the great and magnificent and clever Doctor was much to sure that Donna had to be mind-raped for her own good and abandoned on this crummy little planet for 50 years!" She moved forward, ignoring the feeling that she would be more threatening if she wasn't dressed in a green hospital gown. "It could not have been post-regeneration jitters! No! The martian just knows that it must have been a deadly mental breakdown. Tell me the truth, did it ever occur to you to take five minutes and have the TARDIS run a few scans. You have to be the bloody stupidest Timelord there ever was!"

She lifted her hand to slap him, so upset that she could barely see for the blistering tears in her eyes. Her hand flew through the air but he caught it, with a stronger grip than such a skinny little man should have. "Let go, Doctor! You've got to understand what you've done!"

"I think I do, Donna. I deprived myself of the best companion for too many years… and we've both suffered." He pushed her hand back, stepping forward and looking down at her with a dark intensity. "And you've already shown me pretty plainly what I've done." He tapped his temple.

"I thought you needed me. And off you are getting married!"

"I need you, Donna. We need each other. Doctor/Donna."

Donna sniffed, wiping at the tears on her cheeks with rough strokes of her fingertips. She glanced up at him. "I don't hate you, Sunshine. I just don't like you at the moment."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced on his heels, smiling like the roguish adventurer he was. "Couldn't tell…. Now, I was thinking we'd drop by someplace warm and cheery first to celebrate. What about Draconik 6 and the Moon of Celebration?" He snapped his fingers, "Times Square, watch the ball drop… perhaps the resorts of Suntane…? Can you imagine? Two Timelords and an entire universe just waiting for us."

"Perhaps before you start planning our itinerary, we should get a couple things sorted." She eyed him with a less than friendly gaze. "One, I am not your companion anymore. I won't sit back and hang on your every word and I won't do anything I don't want to do."

"That's what I love about you, Donna. You never change." He was smirking wildly.

"Oi, pay attention. Second, you will never ever get inside my head without my permission or my request—I don't care if you think its life or death—I dump you right here. Now promise."

"What? What if there's… A mad horde of Ood trying to possess you and only _I_ can push them out of your head?"

"Doctor!" She growled, clenching her hand into a fist.

"Third!" He added to the list himself, bouncing on his heels like an excited little boy, "Third, Donna promises to stop slapping the Doctor."

"I only slap you when you deserve it!"

"I only mindwipe you when its necessary!"

"Fine. I'll punch you instead. How do'ye like that, Space Man?" She challenged him, jaw tight.

"Five—"

"Four," Donna sighed.

"Four," The Doctor corrected agreeably. "If you're not going to be a companion, then you've got to be Doctor-like. I'll write you a list, of all the important things… like not to carry guns or dance with Daleks…"

"What!?!"

"Trust me. That's something you don't want to repeat. But with a list, welll… then you can know what to do even if I'm not about." He smiled brightly. "Clever old me."

"I already have most of you memories! What do I need a list for?"

He pressed a finger to his lips, grinning like the maniac he was. "Shh! The Nuns are still sleeping... And there a things, things that I've done or failed to do, Donna, that I don't want you to template yourself after. Be better then me." He let silence fill the room but then his attention was diverted. "I never understood why hospital gowns have no back."

"What?"

"You'd better change if we want to go anywhere tonight." But before Donna could even begin thinking about where the old biddies had put her clothes, the Doctor spun her towards him, yanked his stethoscope out of his pocket, breathed on the end and laid it on her chest. "Nice and steady, lovely, brilliant, thrilling twin heartbeats. Can't get much better than that, can it Donna?"

"I feel rather light but my chest feels all full, like I'm congested." She ruffled his hair, feeling the difference of the years in the texture. "You've aged well, Doctor. Better than I did."

"Lots of celery and carrot juice and exercise. Running mostly. Although there is some jogging involved." He straightened, his playful grin faded a bit. "And River looked after me."

"How long since…?" She cleared her throat, playing with an earlobe and realizing it was one of his ticks and not her own.

"Aw… that's still hundreds and hundreds of years in the future." He pulled back, shoving the stethoscope away.

"How long for you-" And then his name slipped out. His real name. The name nobody knew except the very privileged and the very intimate and she was horrified. She wanted to take it back but could do nothing except stare and swallow hard. "I'm sorry."

"That's going to be a bit weird. You knowing all about me and me knowing only a little bit about the magnificent Donna Noble." He patted her shoulder. "Just don't go spreading that about. I need to be mysterious to someone out there."

She nodded, grabbed the back of her hospital gown and held it together as she turned to begin looking for clothes. "Perhaps you'd better leave for a bit, Space Man."

"Just don't die while I'm gone." His joke fell flat and he paused in the doorway. "Three days, Donna."

Three Days. Here she'd been bullying him about, and he'd just lost his wife. She was a rubbish Timelady already. Donna pulled a shirt over her head, walked to the mirror and she hesitated, afraid of what she'd look like. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and trying to steel herself for a new face.

Whatever happened from here on in, it was going to be Doctor/Donna. Forever.

Eyes open.

_**The End**_


	13. Extra Bits

**Eyes Open**

Extra Bits

**Note:** This was originally included in the story but was taken out due to it not seeming to "fit". This would have been located in Donna's Deathbed/Regeneration scene where the Doctor is reminiscing about his first wife. It was originally written to explain a little more about looming… but I felt that was covered elsewhere in the story.

* * *

The Doctor sat under a silver-leaved tree, a half-eaten _sirom_ dangling from one hand and the list of his "matches" leaned up against his knee. He'd just graduated. Barely. Oh, his grades had been dreadful in all but history and gym. And now, it was time to head to the loom with a stranger and send a little Theta Sigma to take his place at the Academy.

He looked at the list in dismay. Oorusa, Nimona, Suncibile, Raxa, Sisren…

Strange. He had never seen Sisren as anything more than a strange little birthed child who ran away often like he did. She was bright, rebellious and she was always there to stand next to him when everyone came to see their loomed-offspring and no one ever came for him.

"Theta Sigma."

The Doctor looked up, dropping the _sirom_ to the grass and tucking his hands into his jacket. "Hmm…Ah yes, child. I see you also have a-"

"You're on my list. In fact, you might as well be the only one on my list because you're the only one I'll have." And she dropped to her knees beside him, crawling up to sit with her back to the tree, "Have you had another offer?"

"We just received the lists a few moments ago, Theta Xi." He felt panicked and relieved and too old for her and too young and being suddenly afraid that he'd end up with a prattling fool like Raxa. "I've barely had time to read it through."

"Oh." She looked up at him with brown eyes that were too pretty to have come out of even the most sophisticated loom. "Want me to take a look?" And like that, she plucked it from him and began reading the names outloud. "Oorusa wouldn't do, Sigma. She has a stutter and with your habit of messing up all your metaphors, the child might be quite intelligible…"

"Child, you said earlier. You said…"

"That I picked you? And you didn't seem thrilled at that prospect. It's fine. Still. It's fine. I mean, why take a birthed Loom-mate when you could have a real quality Timelady." She cleared her throat, twice and looked at the next name, "Nimona's nice. Bit dull but that might work well-"

"I don't want a Loom-mate." He was pouting now. It was something a freshly loomed child would do but he couldn't help himself. To bring a child into this world of bullies and restrictions and lovelessness... "I still have three regenerations before the Breakdown."

"Good to have these things buttoned up early, they say." She reached for the _sirom_, wiped it off on her sleeve and taking a bite out of it. "But if you can get a Looming-delay, you could put it all off. Maybe that's best."

She handed him back the list, standing and stretching. Ren smiled quickly and pulled out her own list. "As for me, looks like I still have some searching to do." She turned her back.

Fumbling to his feet, the Doctor reached for her shoulder, "Wait…"

* * *

**Note:** Curious to see what "the list" actually was? This was written for me by Wolf With Morals (who has a much more concrete grasp on the Tenth Doctor's "voice" then I do. Enjoy!

* * *

**The List**

1. Very important. Do not ignore. Park TARDIS. Not crash, not bung it at a building. Park it.

2. More important. Hence, being just below the 1st.

3. No wait. Yes. 3. Semi-interesting of sorts. See what the trouble is. Doubtless, if you've landed, there will be trouble. Don't expect any holidays. They don't exist, there is only…

9. Aliens. They're everywhere.

10. Well, Let's skip this and let it move on to-

11. -And most importantly, read the 1st one again, be sure it's done correctly and move on to figuring out how to fix number 10. No. Wait. 3. Yes, fix 3.

12. Right. So, aliens. Problem. Clever plan to solve it. Avoid killing if ever the chance happens to amble by. Life is something I think us Time Lords have too much of sometimes. Some people only have one chance. GIVE THEM THAT CHANCE.

13. Once things have settled down nicely, check for any viable companions. If none strike your fancy, or fill a void this regeneration has…robotics are the answer. Just, avoid androids. Remember the chameleon one? Yeah, let's not deal with that again, eh? Go for compact and cute.

14. UNIT is your base. Gallifrey is not an option anymore, so Sol 3 is our new 'home'. Don't expect them to understand, and don't trust them. But, they are trying to save the Earth. You have that much in common.

10. My favorite! Tea. Have it when ever possible! Nothing can soothe like a good cuppa, and the steam is very good for the synapses.

14. Avoid Jackie Tyler

15. Avoid Rickys, Ians and Mels.

16. Carrots, Celery and Jelly-babies are not a stable diet. No pears. Try to find some little shops-love those- and get a hot meal now and then. It's good for you and helps the local economy.

17. Clothing.

18. There's a mirror in the back closet in the corridor to the south. YES. There is a little girl in there. Don't mess about with it.

19. Try to talk things out. Violence is something to be avoided, yet, can be used. Be wary of becoming too familiar with it. We are Time Lords, and you have no right to take a life. Because, oddly enough, fate finds it funny to zing something at your head. And WHAMMO. New face.

20. It's worth it. Honestly. Really, it is. There's always something to make it worth it. Just…be creative sometimes. That sounded better in my head.

21. Goodbye, good luck, keep up the old girl for me, won't you?

Thanks for slogging through my story! I appreciate it. Review if you like!


End file.
